In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of complete surrender to God. He describes surrender as falling on one's face before God in utter submission. The speaker warns that the end times will be cataclysmic and there will be casualties and martyrs. He challenges the audience to follow God wholeheartedly, even in the face of inconvenience, misunderstanding, and reproach. The sermon references the story of Joshua encountering a man with a drawn sword near Jericho as an example of the radical change that should occur when following God.

Good morning, fellas. Is this okay? Everybody hearing okay? Well, I woke up this morning with a single word, M-A-N, man. Isn't that a precious word? I think of the poems and the songs that have been written to celebrate trees and other things of creation, but not many have paused to marvel at man. What is man that thou art mindful of him? He made man in his image. It's just a precious sight to look out from a platform over a sea of men. Unfortunately, great numbers of them are becoming stunted caricatures in this generation. Terrible retrogression and decay. Failures of mind and nerve and heart and body that are written and are visible that mar the image of God in man. But to see a man in whom the spirit of God is, to look at faces that are clean and resolute, eyes that are not dimmed, and whose eyes you see no flicker of compromise or shame, clear-seeing men, men whose voices don't quiver or waver, there's nothing insidious or hidden, men who stand, erect, and walk firmly, that's a precious sight. It's everything that God is after in the earth, is to produce in the earth such a race of men, while all about them are the dyspeptic and the ulcerous and the cancerous and the varicose-veined physically and spiritually, to have in all of that murk an order of men that resemble him, that stand for him, that look like him, and that are about his business, is the most glorious thing that can be beheld. So I just want to pray that anything that the Lord will speak through me this morning will encourage you to be such a man. Remember what the Pharaoh said about Joseph, when all of the wise men of Egypt failed to interpret his dream, as they stood on the threshold of crisis, even as we do now in this very hour, famine and perplexity, failing economies and collapsing institutions, of which we are only in the first installment, and all the wise men of Egypt shall not be able to give answer, and what good is their complex technology and their computers, when there's no juice, but a lowly Hebrew slave, scorned by the Egyptians, was brought up out of obscurity, who had been shaped at the hand of God, in isolation and hiddenness, who had an answer from God by the Spirit. It is not in me, Joseph said, but God will give you answer. And he did, and saved both Egypt and Israel from perishing. And this Pharaoh had to turn to his counselors and say, can we find such a man as this, one in whom the Spirit of God is? Such a man. Hallelujah. Are you such a man as this, one in whom the Spirit of God is? If I were to describe the first 34 years of my life, or at least from the dawn of consciousness, say from the adolescence, from the age of 14 to 34, I was bent on one search, the discovery of the meaning of manhood. And I think every one of us has gone through this in one form or another, by the lifting of weights, or the various other things that we thought would induce or establish a certain model of manhood. And it all came to naught. Whether it was a physical model or an intellectual model or a cultural model, there's no true manhood until the Spirit of God has found His way in a man. Can we find such a man as this, one in whom the Spirit of God is? There's no talking about man and there's no being man until that spirit is established as the source of a man's life. So I just want you to know what God is about through you, a masterpiece in the earth, the ultimate, the end of all of His creation, His ultimate glory reflected in man. You think of how we have crawled and belched and burped and all of our filthy tremblings and palpitations and the things that have mocked our past, and that God has saved us out of all those lowly things, all those unbecoming things that rotted and sapped us of energy and time, polluted our minds and thoughts, gave us filthy and vicious ambitions and ends, and turned us to the light and to the purposes of His kingdom that we might become men. Hallelujah. So great a salvation. Such a man as this. So precious God, speak to us as men, my God, and challenge us to be men for Your kingdom. Those of us in whom there still is lurking some kind of worldly element that defines manhood on any other terms, but that which Joseph was and what Your true Son is, may it this morning be utterly demolished and expurgated, driven out. May you establish one model, Christ Jesus, the man, the Son of Man, true manhood, my God, and may you not cease with us until He is formed in us utterly and completely, mind, body, soul, spirit, until we are as given to the Father's purposes as He. Take us where we are, my God, and speak to us in such a way this morning that shall make us into such a man, such a man. And we'll thank You and praise You for the occasion. In Jesus' holy name, amen. Well, it takes God to be a man. You know, that could either be a cheap cliche or it could be the most profound statement of truth. It takes God to be a man. Many of us have sought to be it without Him, and we've tasted the utter failure. My failure came in my 34th year when all that I sought to establish by my own strength and intention and mind and will came to absolute naught. I was demolished and destroyed. As a visionary, as an idealist, as a Jewish man who was intensely preoccupied with the conditions of life in the world, as a husband, as a teacher, as a professional, it all came down. It's really ironic that except that there's something transcendent, hate to get fancy with you, someone said to me last night that even if they don't understand every word, they understand. It takes something transcendent to be a man, some measure of courage, some source of strength and some heavenly aptitude that is beyond us and above us to establish true manhood on the earth. We have to encounter the man, and usually it waits, that encounter for our own attempts at manhood to end. And in that 34th year as a bum stalking over the earth with a pack on my back, a hitchhiking lost soul looking for philosophical answers, I encountered the man. The name that I despised faced me. The last one whom I was seeking, the one with whom I wanted least to have to do, faced me and confronted me. And in that surrender that came in Jerusalem after 14 months of travel and encounter and confrontation, I surrendered to the man, and it was the birth and the beginning of my own true manhood. The presence of that perfect man who came in then strove with me and is active still, even to this moment. To be perfected and to be established in me and through me, that I might one day be able to say with Paul, for me to live is Christ. So this morning the Lord has quickened an encounter with the man that came to a Joshua in the book by that name. In the end of the fifth chapter, very familiar verses, when Joshua was by Jericho, he looked up and behold, a man stood near him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, Are you for us or for our adversaries? And he said, No, neither. But as the prince of the Lord's host, am I now come. King James says, Captain, but the truer rendering of the Hebrew word is prince. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, What sayeth my Lord to his servant? And the prince of the Lord's host said to Joshua, Loose your shoes from off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy. And Joshua did so. Just a few verses of description, but it's an enormous and an eternal encounter. Something by the power of God can enable us to have the same encounter this morning by the same man through the word. It's strange where it takes place, at the very gate or the door of Jericho, a Canaanitish capital. Everything that contends against God and that is opposed to him is symbolized and expressed in Jericho. This is the place that was a proud city, stalled with its great ramifications. And where these Canaanites stood at the top and looked out at that beggarly army of Israelites and jeered and taunted them for their marching about. And the foolishness of eating the dust kicked up in their face, following in silence around that city until seven times on the seventh day the wall fell and each man went in before him and took the city. Jericho is a statement of all that is opposed to God. Canaan is the symbol of everything that is antithetical to the Spirit of God. And yet the same place, once these things are driven out, is the land of promise. Isn't it an irony that there are men in this room right now who have been dwelling too long in Canaan, too long in Jericho, even adopting the vocabulary and the mood and the attitude and spirit of the Canaanites. But the same very moment where you're closest to the things that are opposed to God is the very same moment when you're closest to the opportunity for the walls to come down and God to come in. We need to see that there's a man standing with his sword drawn. Isn't it interesting that in the moment that I called upon that man's name, and I can't tell you what an exercise of agony that was 16 years ago, Jewish atheist, anti-establishment, despiser of all religion and most especially Christianity, having to call on the name of the man, Christ Jesus. A man who never had trouble in his fluency, in seduction or anger or bitterness or revolution to incite men to anything, had great trouble just calling upon the name of the man. I knew in that moment that whatever was true of Jewish history or environment or heredity had nothing to do with my ability to say yes or no to him. It was my choice to take off my shoes and to bring my face to the ground and bow before him. And God gave me an enablement to do so and the man came in. Cats went down and the man came in. And from the moment that the spirit of that man came in, I knew that there was a war on. I knew that I had not been inducted into some kind of soppy Sunday Christianity, but that I had been drafted into an eternal conflict between the forces of light and darkness. I encountered the man from the first with his sword drawn. And I'm wondering about the Jesus that others seem to celebrate in this cheapie generation, whether it's the same Lord calling men to follow him into the battle of the taking of the land. They seem to have found a more accommodating Jesus who placates them and allows them to be satisfied in the place that they are. And somehow you don't see the radical change that ought to take place that comes to those who follow the prince. So when Joshua was by Jericho, there the enormous encounter came because he looked and behold, a man. He looked up, it says. Have you looked up and beheld the man with the sword drawn who stood near him, sword in his hand? Interesting with Joshua's first reaction and statement was, are you for us or against us? You can see why we need such an encounter because until it comes, it's still us guys against those guys. Our interest is against their interests. We're still somehow, even though we're partially involved in the purposes of God, still very much concerned with the things that immediately affect us. We're still egocentric. We're Christians of a kind, but it's still us as them, my interest as against another's. And the answer of the prince was neither. It's not my game. I'm not for you nor for them in the sense that you think. And until you're for me, totally and wholly, until your face has come down on the ground and into the earth, you're not going to be a man. There's no rising up into full manhood and full stature until there's first a coming down to your own self-interest. Are you for us or against us? My denomination or the other, my ministry or theirs, still competitive, still biting, still playing the world's game, still being compromised by fluttering hearts and weakness and fear about being seen, being established, being acknowledged, not yet a man. I don't think there's any true manhood until there's an utter selflessness. I know what I'm saying is full of irony and completely contradicts the wisdom of the world. The world says you want to be a man? Be suffocated with self-interest. Go and spend time in the gym and develop your biceps. Go and develop your sexual prowess. Take courses in personality improvement and speech and see to your own interest. Stuff your pockets with dough and have big cars and all that jazz. See to your self-interest and you establish manhood. And so we have quivering wrecks and large houses with large cars whose eyes can't look another man straight in the face, whose voices are full of compromise and who wrestle through the night hours on sweaty sheets full of intimidating fears, their closets full of ghosts that harass and conquer them. There's no true manhood until there's an utter coming down before the prince with the sword drawn. This isn't your little soppy Jesus who is a buddy that's going to help you in the way. This is the prince who is calling you into his way. And there's a purpose and a heroic purpose. It's the taking of the land. There's no place there for self-interest, for beggarly kinds of things that compromise and contradict. And the beginning of such a walk is a complete coming down on your face before him whom you have looked up to see with his sword drawn. He looked up and behold a man with his strong sword in his hand who said, I have come now as the prince of the Lord's host and Joshua fell on his face to the earth. As the prince of the Lord's host am I now come. In that moment he had come now as that. But in other moments he had come as other things, as a babe, as a lamb, as the Christ, but he has now come as the captain of the host, as the prince with the sword drawn. That's now. Maybe we need to see him now in the way that he is now calling us. And the accent of that call has already been expressed this morning by art. Satisfied where you are and what you're doing, thinking that you're serving the Lord, occupied with your own business and his if there's time left over. When there's only one real purpose for all being, it's to follow him who has the drawn sword. There's no conscription about this is entirely voluntary for men who will look up and behold God now in this posture and fall on their faces before him in the earth in the most abject and total surrender, no holds barred, unconditional. It says he fell on his face to the earth and worshipped. Any worship that is less than this is not worship. If it's only mere choruses that are euphoric, that induce a certain kind of feeling that we enjoy for the moment. That is not the song that comes with this kind of total surrender of the face in the earth before him. It is not worship. The actual meaning of the word worship is bowing down. How many of us have gone that far down without face into the earth? The face is the emblem of a man. That's where his arrogance lurks and his conceit, his lusts, his flirtations, all that has merchandised and had business with the world in its spirit. How dare we show such a brazen face, the features of which have been formed in the world, the corners of the mouth and the lines, to a holy God? It needs to come down into the earth. Everything that we are as men, down, that's worship. And he worshipped and said to him, What saith my Lord to his servant? I love the remarks of these Jewish men. It is always the same. The manner of expression might have some slight variation, but the substance is ever and always the same. There's only one kind of statement, only one question that can be addressed to him who confronts us and challenges us as men. Lord, what would you have for me to do? What saith my Lord to his servant? Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And have you asked that question, fellas? Have you been afraid to ask it, lest you get an answer that will shatter your own petty little kingdom, that will compel you to cut your hair, symbolically speaking, or to give up some other vested interest that you felt has not been inimical or opposed to the kingdom, that you could have all this and heaven too? Have you come to the totality of God, without which there is not true manhood? I wish to God that I could coin another word for totality, but I don't know what it would be. But the Lord has been so impressing me that he's total God calling to total man totally. And until we respond utterly and unequivocally, we shall not come into that image. It's marred somehow. It's a bit of this and a bit of that, and it shows. It's an army that God is after that will take the Jerichos that stand in the way, all of the vicious and historic opponents of God, the jeering and the taunting Canaanites, thinking that they've got all the marbles, all the power, all the strength, looking at this feeble band of souls who think by the foolishness of marching in silence around the city that somehow by that means it will be taken. We're the men who will march in lockstep, in utter discipline, in the place which God puts them, without jealousy, without competition, without striving, content to eat the dust kicked into their face by that one who marches before them and not in any way to feel embittered. Willing to follow the priests whom the Lord has assembled at the front and will not so much as raise their voice until he says, shout. Can there be a man who is not also disciplined? Can we talk about manhood and not include the word discipline? With all of the references to disciples in our generation and the cheapy kind of thing which it has become, how many of us are truly disciplined in God and can keep silent until he bids us shout? We will not go except he bids us go, nor speak, nor do, nor undertake, nor initiate anything except that the Lord of hosts goes before with his sword drawn. And when he goes, we go. Not one step behind, nor one step in advance. Utter, total obedience to God, having no interest for ourselves, by ourselves, or unto ourselves, but for his glory only. Can you imagine such an army of men in the earth? What Jericho can dare stand before them? He's waiting for something to come down. Your for us or against us? Still us palpitating and quivering over our own self-interest, mixed in somehow with the interests of God. Neither, Jesus said. That's not my game. It's not that I'm for you or against you. There's a much larger thing than you, namely my kingdom and my holy house established on my holy hill in Zion when the land shall be taken by an army of valiant men who are soldiers for Christ's sake. Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, What saith my Lord to his servant? Have you asked that question? Lord, what would you have for me to do? And the prince of the Lord's host said to Joshua, Loose your shoes from off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy. And Joshua did so. Until this morning I always thought that that place was the physical location where the Lord himself stood and that's what made that place holy. And I'm sure that that's true. But the word place suggests something more than physical location. It's the spot and the moment of time in which a certain quality of commitment of an utter and devastatingly total character is made to the prince of the Lord's host. Have you come to that place? It's holy ground, fellas. And I'll bet you dollars to donuts that half the men in this room, at least, maybe three quarters, two thirds, nine tenths, have never come to that holy place. You're precious, every one of you. The Spirit of God is brooding over this room and His love is sensed and felt for us. But He sees us in our masturbations and compromises physically and otherwise, in the way the world is seducing us. He sees us in our fears and lack of true resolution and utter commitment to Him and to each other. He sees us in our wavering and our compromise. He sees us in our partiality. He sees that we have not yet ever really asked the question alone which He is waiting to hear from our lips. What saith my Lord to His servant? Well, the Lord has said a few things to me in these 16 years. Not one of them has ever brought convenience. Every single one of them has been attended by pain, by inconvenience, by humiliation, by failure, by everything that men in the natural would flee to avoid. One of the most recent of these things was leave your 17-room house in New Jersey and your two Volvo cars and your private lifestyle for which no one has ever faulted you and which everyone thought was your due as a messenger of God, and after all, you're living far more modestly than others whose ministries are less distinguished than yours, who enjoy $200,000 homes and all the rest. So what is your little $50,000 thing with the 17 rooms and the gothic frame house that your wife so loves? Go up to Minnesota and in the cold and in the dust and in the heat and in the mosquitoes and all that, begin to walk out a New Testament quality of life with those with whom I shall join and whom I shall call. I remember the first time we drove up the driveway of that property. My wife had her face in the newspapers. This is a woman who never reads the newspaper. She would not look up to see the property. She went because she was compelled, but she went very reluctantly, to say the least. It was an anguish of coercion. Well, why do we have to suffer this? Just because you think that God is calling you to that remote location, why must the children suffer? Why must they change schools again? And why this and why that and all the kinds of relentless questions that women are so talented to ask? And you know what? You can't answer. Can you say that you have even so much as heard a clear and distinct voice in speaking of God? I couldn't. I only intimated something, something that was welling up in my spirit that did me go. And I can repeat the illustrations, and there are many in this room who have others to offer. What saith my Lord unto his servant? Whatever that saying is, will you do it? Whatever the inconvenience is, will you do it? Whatever the misunderstanding and the reproach is, will you do it? What saith my Lord? I don't have a word to describe the genius of that question. So pleasing in the ear of God because it is total, because it is unconditional, because it's the end of any kind of subtle vested self-interest. It's no holds barred. Lord, what would you have for me to do? I don't think that we can speak of true worship until we have asked that question. And I don't think that we will ask that question until we look up and behold the captain of the host with his sword drawn and recognize that at last and finally we are on holy ground. Have you come to that ground? It's right at the gate of Jericho, right at the place of Canaan, right with all that murky Canaanitish civilization, right where God is most vigorously opposed, where all the world is against him in its spirit. There is also the greatest opportunity to join the army of God. Loose your shoes from off your feet for the place where you stand is holy. And Joshua did so. I'm not sure that I understand the significance and meaning of that. But if the Lord had said, take off everything, he would have done so. He would have been stripped to the utter bone and maybe the shoes are the symbol of that stripping. He did so. No ifs, no ands, no buts. No asking why or explanation or what is the meaning. He did so. And that's the spirit that took the land. That's the spirit of the army of God that possessed the land and established his house in his holy hill. And that's the spirit that must again characterize the men of God in this final generation. He did so. Can we find such a man as this? Such a man. It just takes a confrontation with the man with the sword drawn to become such a man. If you'll only look up this morning, behold, there's a man waiting to confront us as men. A familiar verse also was singing in my spirit this morning. What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and has crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands and has put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field and the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. What is man that thou art mindful of him? You have given him dominion over all things, the beasts of the earth, everything that is fleshly and carnal, everything that has to do with lusts that compromise. You've given him dominion. What is man? Dominion over the earth and over the birds of the air, thoughts, polluting and corrupting and compromising thoughts, jealous thoughts and angry thoughts and bitter thoughts. You've given him dominion over the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea, even that murky subconscious stuff that wakes you in the middle of the night with a jerk. What is man that thou art mindful of him? Thou hast given him dominion. There's a man who wrote a poem about a tree. I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree. God is waiting for someone to write something inspired about a man, such a man in whom the Spirit of God is. If men can be impressed with dumb trees that don't speak because they are an expression of God's creation, what shall we say for the ultimate expression? Such a man in whom the Spirit of God is. This is God's ultimate intention. Are you moving toward that? Are you experiencing dominion over the beasts of the earth, over lusts, over carnal things, over flesh, dominion over thoughts, dominion over the subconscious? The deeper down you go into the sea, the more bizarre are the forms and the expressions. Can you imagine a man that has dominion? Can you imagine a man that is in him, such a man, whose eyes and voice and posture and stature and gait and walk, whose activity, whose purposes, whose values, whose energy, whose everything is in him, joined with the captain of the host, the man with the sword drawn? O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. Do you know how come? Because such men make the name of the Lord excellent in all the earth. How it would be thy name is the first requirement of the Lord's prayer, and it doesn't come by some magical waving of a wand. His name is hallowed by the presence of men in the earth who are like him. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. The Jericho's come down, and the city of God go up. So the men of God who will follow him, who has the drawn sword, who have worshiped him, who have gone down on their faces to every last pukey self-interest that they might rise up to be the army of God. Hallowed be thy name. What a precious thing a man is who has surrendered everything to God. What a precious thing to have his manhood formed by the man. What a precious thing not to be compromised by the fowls of the air or the beasts of the earth or the fish of the sea. What a precious thing to have dominion in body, soul and mind and spirit. What a precious thing not to be a compulsive masturbator or gambler or drinker or seducer or have your eyes filled and swollen with the kinds of things that distract you from the holiness of God. What a precious thing to be single-eyed and to be given to the purposes of God. What a precious thing to be employed in God's ultimate glory. A man, such a man. I woke up this morning with one word, man. It has not to do with bulging biceps or crushing beer cans in one hand or being a smoothie or a whiz kid or a wheeler or dealer or a sharp businessman making a killing. It's got to do with an encounter with the man who has the sword drawn. Right at the gates of Jericho, Joshua looked up and behold, a man. The prince of the Lord's host. It's holy ground, fellas. It's not just so much a physical place as it is a moment of utter surrender that is final and irrevocable and no taking back. It's coming down on one's face. What saith the Lord to his servant? Have you looked up and beheld the Lord with his sword drawn? He has not called us to some patsy thing. The age is going to end more cataclysmically than it begun. This is going to be a drama beyond all imagining. There are going to be casualties and there are going to be martyrs. There's going again to be apostolic heroism. There are going again to be great men of God who do great exploits for God. The earth is going to be shaken in the final collision between kingdoms. This little patsy religious age is going to go down the tube. The final and true issues are going to emerge between light and darkness. It's a time and a call for men. It's at the gate. And I think that he's here this morning for as many as will look up and behold him and fall down before him and worship and speak the thing he's been waiting to hear. What saith my Lord to his servant? And he worshipped him there. Such a man. Joshua fit the battle of Jericho. Hallelujah. Shall we look up and behold him? Not the Jesus who's going to help us in the way that we go but who has called us in the way that he goes. Much larger purpose than our own. Are you for us or against us? He didn't recognize who it was. Shall we look down or come down with our faces in the earth and give God that statement he's been waiting to hear? And the beginning of true worship is the beginning of true service? Jesus said God the Father is seeking those who will worship him in spirit and in truth. Why didn't he say seeking those who will serve him, do for him, go for him? He only spoke one thing. Worship him in spirit and in truth. Because when God has a man there, he has the man. He fell down on his face and he worshipped him. The ground upon which you stand is holy ground. I think it's so this morning. The time has come to take the land. Precious God in Jesus' name, we want to be such a man. Thank you that you have plucked us as brands out of the fire from burning wood. We were a mess, a mishmash, a mixed bag. Slaves to our lust, slaves to our appetites, riddled with impure thoughts, my God, full of fears and intimidations, full of compromise. And you loved us in that condition and saved us in that condition. But it's not a condition in which you would have us to remain or even just slightly to experience an improvement. You have called us to your ultimate masterpiece, such a man in whom the spirit of God is. And so I ask, precious God, for every man who has heard what you have spoken this morning, who has recognized that there's something here this morning beyond mere meeting, that this is the holy place, the place of confrontation, the place of full identification with the man who is the captain of the host, the place of full surrender, no ifs, no ands, no buts, unconditional, the place of worship, the place of service, the holy place that you're here. May they behold you. May they come down on their faces before you. May they speak, my God, that one statement you've been waiting to hear. What saith my Lord to his servant? Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. Seal something with him now. I wouldn't say it's dramatic to even go down on your feet or on your knees or on your face, right here on this carpet. I wouldn't think that too extravagant a response to the Lord speaking. Be his man for God's sake. My Jewish people cried out, not this man, but Barabbas. And I want to tell you guys, it's the one or the other. It's this man or it's Barabbas. And if you'll not go down for the one, you most assuredly have gone down for the other. A robber, a thief, a lecher, a rapist, a murderer, a compromiser. Not this man, my Jewish people cried out, and for 2,000 years they've had the other. And it has despoiled their manhood and made them as castrated before their own wives. A woman-dominated society. Weak men with cheap motives whose lives are misspent because they would not have this man. Not this man. Have you bowed down before this man, the captain of the host with the drawn sword? Have you bowed your face to the earth and worshipped him? Have you taken off your shoes on that holy ground? Have you said to him, what saith the Lord unto his servant? This is holy ground right now for as many as will have this man with the sword drawn and will follow him wheresoever he leadeth you.