The Standard Of The Lord.

THE STANDARD OF THE LORD.

Joshua 5:1-12.

Verse 1. Now it came about when all the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard how the LORD had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the sons of Israel until they had crossed, that their hearts melted, and there was no spirit in them any longer because of the sons of Israel.

1. The Lord will stop everything to re-establish his will for his children.

Gen. 6:5. The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, & that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

Matthew 24:37, As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.¨

Truth # 1. As a child of the Lord I am accountable to Jesus to maintain the standard of the Lord.

Romans 14:12, So each of us will give an account of himself to God.¨

TRUTH #2. It my responsibility to base my choices on the standard of the Lord.

I shouldn’t be making choices bases on how I feel.

TRUTH #3 It is not my good deeds that count. It is the mercy and grace of the Lord that counts.

TRUTH #4. It is possible for a person to know all the right words and still lack a true response as a child of the Lord.

TRUTH #5. WHEN WE ACCEPT THE GIFT THAT JESUS WON FOR US ON THE CROSS AND WE WALK THE PATH OF THE WORLD INSTEAD OF THE PATH OF RIGHTEOUS WE ARE SAYING THAT WE DON’T DESIRE TO HAVE A MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST.

Truth #6. THE WILL OF THE LORD MUST ALWAYS HAVE FIRST PLACE IN OUR LIVES.

THE STANDARD OF THE LORD.

Joshua 5:1-12.

On Tuesday of this week Barbara and I had to go to the Brookside Mall. While she was doing her thing I decided to visit the book store. I found out that there isn’t a book store in the mall anymore. So I decided to have a cup of coffee instead. While I was getting my coffee a couple of young ladies came in and one of them began to tell about her experience at work. She said that her supervisor didn’t like the way she was dressed so she was asked to go home and change. From the conservation that I heard, simply because she was standing next to me and she didn’t care who heard her, she had quite a chat with her supervisor. Since I was included in this chat I asked her what she was going to do. She said if they didn’t like her, the way she was, that she was going to quit, which she did. After a while I got to chat with the two employee and I ask them if they were friends with this young lady who quit. They told me they had never met her before. I asked them what they though about she said, that she would sooner quit that meet the standard of the company. Both of these two employee said that they have heard of a lot of people who quit their job rather than meet the standard of the company. Now I want you to know that in today world the idea of an employee not meeting the requirement of the employer is not new. I remember listening to a young man who told me that if a company wanted to hire him they had better be prepared to meet his requirements. We have become a society that is trying to meet the wishes of society instead on following the Standard of the Lord.

One of the themes that I find through out the Book of Joshua is making choices. You and I make choices every hour of every day. Some of our choices may not seem like they are very big. The crossing of the Jordan River was a major event in the Lives of the people of Israel. This moment reflects back almost a 1000 years to when the Lord made Abraham a promise and now the people where stepping on the ground that the Lord had promised to them. I can imagine that once they have made camp that the leader can expect Joshua to get them together so that they could begin to make plans to take the city of Jericho. I can almost feel the excitement. They had witnessed a miracle that was equal to the parting of the red sea over 40 years before. It is very likely that this whole group of people had not even been born when they crossed the Red Sea. They knew that Joshua and Caleb saw it and probably told stories about it. So as I said the natural process would be to begin to make war plans.