Joshua 10:10-14
It is said that millions of people in the United States are without health insurance and the government is going to step in and do something about it. There are also many people in the United States without soul insurance are we going to leave it to the government to do something about it? God has chosen you and I to be delivers.
There are so many lost and brokenhearted people in this world. They desperately need to know that Jesus died and rose again to set them free. For some of these people, you and I are God`s chosen instruments of deliverance. For some of those folk we are the only bible that they will ever read. So we need to walk in the word, we need to be doers of the word and we need to live by the word. We must exemplify who we are, whose we are and whom we are representing. We need to tap in on the resources of the power that is within us. The bible says that one can chase a thousand and two can put ten thousand to flight.
We need to live what we say we believe and what we are taught in Scripture, so that people see Christ in us. People what to see Christians, and not just hear what they have to say. Too many folk can’t hear what we are saying because they are too busy looking at what we are doing. We profess the Lord we ought to call him up and tell him what we want. Jesus is on the main line just call him up and tell him what you want.
Webster describes the word deliverer as one who sets free; one who assists in giving birth or to aid in the birth of, or one who sends something aimed or guided to an intended target or destination or to free from confinement, danger or evil.
As God’s chosen deliverer to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, Joshua had lived a life that had been a long adventure of faith. Joshua had witnessed the demonstration of God’s nighty power many times.
Under Moses’s leadership, Joshua had seen God lead the Israelites through the wilderness by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. He had watched as the Lord had delivered his people by dividing the Red Sea, tumbling the walls of Jericho, and causing the sun to stand still for a day while the Israelites defeated their enemies.
Like Joshua, we as Children of God are also God’s chosen deliverers. But we live under a better covenant than Joshua did, a covenant that was sanyyy tified by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. That blood delivered us from Satan’s kingdom of darkness, and we have been translated into the Kingdom of God. Now God wants to use us to deliver others. Our lives, like Joshua’s can also be an adventure of faith as we go forth into this lost and dying world to proclaim the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ. Telling men women girls and boys that the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life. Telling them that there is a reality is serving a true and living God.
In his final days on earth, Joshua made a statement to God’s people that stands as a testimony to the faithfulness of God to His eternal Word. Joshua told the people, "Ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you (Joshua 23:14).
What a statement for Joshua to make at the end of his life. What a covenant God maintained with the Israelites as He faithfully brought them into their Promised Land! Not one thing the Lord had promised His people failed to come to pass!
The bible says God never changes. (Malchia 3:6). The God who departed the Jordan River as the Israelites prepared to enter the Promised Land is the same God who delivered Noah and his family from the Flood. The God who caused the walls of Jericho to fall is the same God who proved Himself faithful to Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. God is the same delivering God every time.
The God of Noah, Abraham, and Joshua is your God today if you have put your trust in him. He is still the same faithful God who remains true to every one of His promises. And he is still in the delivering business. God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to destroy the works of the enemy and to deliver you from all the power of darkness. And he has called us to proclaim that same deliverance to others who don’t know that Jeus died and rose again so they could be free.
It is said that the decleration of Independence and the Bill of Rights made us free, but I know that Jesus Chrsit made me free over 2,000 years ago.
We need to realize that we cannot be a deliverer on this earth while sitting around doing nothing. When God commanded the Israelites to cross the Jordan River, they had a part to play in receiving God’s deliverance. The Jordan River was flooded, and its raging waters seemed impossible to cross.
But the Israelites didn’t sit down on the banks of the river and twidled their thumbs, waiting for God to do something so they could cross over. If they had, they would never have entered the Promised Land. No, Joshua told the priests to take the Ark of the Covenant and step out into the flooded river.
I just stopped by to tell you New Commandment that if you want to see God move in your life, in your church, in your home, in your community you need to step out into the flooded river. The tempest may be raging, the billows may be tossing high, the skies may be overshadowed with blackness, but if you call on the name of Jesus he will step out the deck of the ships of your life and say peace be still.
The natural circumstances hadn’t changed at all when the priests took the first step. Thr rushing waters still looked impassable. The people could have grumbled among themselves, saying, "What kind of leader is Joshua anyway?" They could have refused to obey Joshua’s orders because his orders didn’t make sense to the natural mind. But if the people had done that, they would never have entered the Promised Land and received their inheritance.
Instead, the Iseraliets did what Joshua told them to do. And the moment the priests stepped into the river, the waters divided. The Israleits walked across on dry ground because they chose to obey God’s command, regardless of what the natural circumstances looked like.
What did Joshua and the Israelites have to do? First of all, they had to believe God’s promise to give them the land. They they had to act on His Word. It is when they obeyed God’s command to actually enter and possess the land that God delivered their enemies into their hands.
In the same way, if you’re going to be one of God’s chosen deliveres and help win this generation to Jeus Christ, you must determine to believe what God’s Word says about who you are in Christ. Then you must act on that knowledge. As you do, God will use you as a vessel of his delivering power to set people free from the bondage of sin.
The bible says that as children of God, you can ask anything of the Father in the Name of Jesus and it will be done for you. It says you shall preach the gospel, lay hands on the sick and they shall recover, and cast out demons by the power of Jesus Christ.
You are a deliverer. It’s not just the preacher or the Sunday school teach whom God wants to use to set people free fron sin’s bondage. He wants to us you. Whether or not you are a minister, God has entrusted to you as a believer the ministry of reconciliation. You are to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and deliver people fron the kingdom of darkness through the poer of the Word.
Because of the redemption Jesus bought for you with His blood, you don’t have to run in fear from the devil. You have power over all the power of the enemy. As God’s deliverer, you can stand against the wiles of the devil in the authority of the Name of Jesus and say you are a defeated foe. We need to let go of our religious thinking and have the courage to take the Word of God for what it says. We can mount up on wings of an eagle. We can run and not be weary. We can run and not faint.
The man at the pool of Bethesda was waiting for a moving of the waters. This new way of thinking today is interested in political and social movements as vehicles of external change. Furthermore, that man waited for a man. He said, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool" Too many of us are waiting on a man. Some of us are waiting on the President to cure our social ills. Some of us are waiting on the mayor. Some of us are waiting on someone else. It seems that this world is one big pool of Bethesda with its impotent millions looking to movements and men, but not to the Master, the crucified Christ.
If we are going to be deliverers today Jesus is saying watch me closely. Mimic your Master, Copy your Christ, pattern your prince, study you Saviour. In a time when so many are seeking short cuts and quick remedies self-gratification is always secondary to the satisfaction of the hunger of the spirit in God.
I cannot find in my bible where New Testament churches resorted to alcohol, dances, gambling, and rock and roll bands to advance the conquests of the cross. They contented themselves with preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They kept on telling men and women, boys and girls that there is pardon and cleansing power through the blood of Jesus Christ; and the Scriptures say, "The Lord added to the church such as should be saved. Jesus is out side of the door of his own church waiting to come in.
We ought to know by now that the King is better to us than we deserve. We ought to know just as well that you can’t beat God’s giving. Every time we get down on our knees to thank Him, we ought to get back on our feet and stand up for something. For it’s a real blessing when you wake up in the morning and still find your name on God’s agenda. We could have been dead sleeping in our grave but God made old death behave. Oh, yes, we ought to say, "Thank you, Jesus, and not be afraid that somebody will hear us. What Jesus opens, no man can shut. Well, that’s enough to shout about right thre.
God is not going to reward people for the office or position they fill. God is going to reward folk for their faithfulness. So just be faithful. The bible says be thou faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life.
God’s grace is sufficient. He will take care of the situation. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but thereis one thing that I do know that if he did it for those of yesteryears, He’ll do it again and again and again and again.
The church received its power on the day of Pentecost. The Lord had told Peter in the 16th chapter of Matthew "Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. What the Lord was saying was the church must have power to stand against satan. And if the church build upon the rock the gates of dope addition, the gates of prosticution, the gates of Murder, the gates of Gang Banging, the gates of ... Shall not prevail against it. What the Lord was saying is that the Church must have delivering power and soul saving power to stand against Satan. So that’s why the Lord said, "and ye shall receive power after that the Holyt Ghost has come upon you." The reason so many of us don’t have any power today is that nothing has never come upon us. If the church will have power at all, it must be with us.
I think the apostles chould have gone a long time if they didn’t act like Jesus. What they were doing was in direct remembrance of Jesus himself. For until Peter and John had the lame man to walk, things were going alright. But now they were doing the same things that Jesus had done. However, the only difference was Jesus just said let it be and the apostles were saying, in the name of Jesus, let it be. You might as well know that until you start acting like Jesus people don’t really notice you. But I dare you to start acting like Jesus and trouble will start. If you stand up for right and righteousness your family will trun their back on you. Your friends will stab you in the back.
If every good Christian were satisfied at all times with temporal blessings, we would appear to serve God for profit. God does not always give bread to his sons. But he has appointed for our spirit, some better spiritual fruit. He may not give us the home on the hill, but he has promised us that he has a mansion prepared for us. He may not give us all a fine automobile to ride in, but he has promised to give us two wings to vail our face, two wings to vail our feet, two wings to fly away so the world can’t do us no harm. He may not give us steaks and Ham but he has promised us a land that flows with milk and honey.
