In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of knowledge and its impact on our lives. He highlights that knowledge alone is not enough; it is the transformation and experiences that result from that knowledge that truly matter. The speaker also discusses the role of Christians as kings and their future reign on earth. He connects the Old Testament to the New Testament, citing 1 Corinthians 10:4 as evidence that the Old Testament is relevant to Christians. The sermon concludes with a reminder that Christianity as we know it is changing, and it is our responsibility to understand and explain this new day.

Lord, as we come unto you tonight, we praise and rejoice, Lord, because of your goodness to us, Lord. You're so good to us. You're so good to us. And Lord, we know that we're entering into your plans, Lord, not ours, nothing we made up. We don't have any model of interpretation going. But into what you're doing today, and we're merely trying to interpret it and bear witness to it. It's what you're doing. It's worldwide. It involves a lot of people. It'll probably go all the way through the thousand-year kingdom age. So, Lord, help us to get it right and to wait upon you constantly that everything that's said and done and perceived will be of you. Help us tonight. Keep your hands on our families. Give us clear minds and spirits. We pray for everyone the spirit of revelation and wisdom in the knowledge of Jesus. Thank you for it, Lord. Amen. Now, we were at a meeting today, and I would say no one in the room other than Stan and Lisa and Audrey and I and possibly a couple of the pastors that get our monthly mailer have any inkling of what comes after Pentecost. And if someone hits you with that in the days to come, and they said, well, what do you mean a new thing? God's doing a new thing. What would you say? You better have scripture to back up what you're going to say, too, you know? Only floozy answers, like something wonderful is on the horizon. We know that. But outside of the blessing of God, which is coming to every church that prays for it, it seems, if you said, yeah, yeah, we teach something past Pentecost, oh, yeah, we're way past that. Precisely what? Well, let's see what we can do about that. Let's turn to the first chapter of the book of Joshua. Yep, sat in a meeting today. We didn't hear any war songs. That perturbed me. I don't want to hear any more about beautiful Jesus. Whatever salvation is, it's not beautiful. It says about Jesus, he's not beautiful, Isaiah 53. I've about had all I can stand of beautiful Jesus and how beautiful it is. Whatever you want to say about circumcision, it's not beautiful. Nothing else God does. Joshua 1, now it came about after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord. What does that tell us? Put yourself in the Jews' place. What are we saying here? Awesome, awesome, awesome change. Awesome change. Awesome change. How many know how much people enjoy change? They may grumble for 40 years, but that doesn't mean they want anything changed. They just like to grumble, but that doesn't mean they want anything to happen to Moses. It tells us that change comes in the kingdom and change is here. Change is here now. You can take Moses, you can prop him up as the Jews do today. They're trying to make him live after Christ has come and gone, so to speak. Messiah has come and gone, they're still trying to work with Moses. They don't give up easily, the Jews don't. And by and large, people don't either. Change is hard for people. It was hard for them. But one thing you can say to people is that the book of Joshua tells us that change comes. How was Joshua different from Moses? One might say, yes. In what other ways was he different? What vocation did Moses have that Joshua never had? Joshua never was a shepherd. He never was a shepherd. What was permitted to Joshua that was not permitted to Moses? Entering the land of promise, Moses was not permitted. What did Moses do that Joshua did not do in his contract? I remember one time looking out by Biola in Los Angeles, by the public library there. They had great teachers, and on there they had Confucius, and I don't know who else. Moses was up there. Great teachers of mankind. I suppose still up there in Fresco or whatever you call the public library in LA. It's a great teacher. What's Joshua noted for? You know who studies Joshua? War colleges. Yeah, I read that. That wasn't a religious book either. It was somewhere in a paper or something. They study Joshua to study strategy and tactics. I'll tell you who else studied Joshua. I was reading one time about the gangs in New York, and they study Caesar. They study Joshua. Yeah, they take them, the lords of Brooklyn and wherever, they take themselves very seriously. They study strategy. That's a fact. These guys are not dumb just because they go around, shoot up the countryside and hate civilization it seems, but they were smart enough to study war tactics. Some things that you learn about ambush and different things. Well, anyway, that's a fact. I didn't make it up. It's a fact. Both those things are true. So Joshua, now could we say to a Christian that had confronted us with this, do you believe that the Old Testament has anything to do with the New? Could we ask them that question? How can that be answered? Does anyone remember? For sure. This is important. Otherwise, what are we doing back in Joshua? Somebody read it in loud, clear, bell-like tones from the diagram. You would be able to tell from what verse? Okay, so we would say that the book of Joshua has been applied to us upon whom the ends of the world have come. The ends of the age actually. What does it tell us? Now here's where we get into the definition of what do you mean by a new thing and why are you bellyaching about because there's no war songs and everything's beautiful. What does it tell us? The fact of the writing, these things were written. The writing of the book of Joshua is for us upon whom the ends of the age have come. What does it tell us? What are some of the things? It tells us obviously many things. What are some of the things it tells us? It tells us there's a battle. It tells us there's going to be a battle. So we are not remiss in talking about war. Now in connection with this battle, is this talking about people using typology, is it talking about people at the beginning of salvation or toward the fulfillment? Toward the fulfillment there's going to be what? There's going to be a war. Was there a war at the beginning of our salvation? Did we fight it? Who fought it? And these people are still holding up but he did it all. You're complete in him but he did it all. Yes, at the beginning he did it all but when you come to the end, what's true? We have to fight to gain what? To gain the objective. So that tells us that there's an objective that redemption is not open-ended. It's going somewhere. There's a time when God's people will have to fight to get what God promised them when they were saved. Saved meaning in the sense of saved out of Egypt, saved out of the world. They haven't as yet gained salvation in the sense of Hebrews the third chapter by which you are saved if you keep in mind. Hebrews is talking about the land of promise, the rest. Joshua had given rest, he would not have spoken of another day. King James says Jesus and the word is Joshua. Jesus and Joshua are very closely related in the Hebrew, same word, Yeshua. Joshua is Yeshua I think. All right, now stop and think, think, think, think. How are we saved? Where in terms of this journey, at what point did we start on this journey? At what point? No, no, that's not true Paul. That's not true but that's all right. But I mean in terms of this journey, what marked the beginning? Passover, Pesach, had a definite beginning. What was involved there? The blood of the lamb. The blood of the lamb was involved, okay? Now in that sense we were saved from what? We were saved from Pharaoh's slavery, building treasure cities for Pharaoh. Ramses they say, they believe it was what, Audrey? Ramses the second, who was a great builder, a great builder who's still standing today. They believe that Ramses, by they I mean we get the archaeological, what's the name of that? B-A-R, Biblical Archaeological Review, and the hot, the buzz now is that Ramses the second was the Pharaoh of the Exodus. So they were saved from building treasure cities. Now by and large in typology, what does Egypt represent? The world. And as long as you're in the world, believe me, you're going to build treasure cities for Pharaoh. It's getting now in corporations, if you hope to go up the top, you've got to become more than work eight hours a day. I mean you've got to marry the thing. They want to know about your wife, what you wear, what kind of leather and your billfold and everything. I mean you've got to marry that thing or forget about top management. That's true in some big corporations. And well what are you building? You work day and night. If somebody could come up with a better computer environment than Windows, they would be a billionaire so many times over it isn't even funny. That's why the brother there is this great tycoon Gates. Gates is his name, Bill Gates. DOS and then Windows, always ahead of the game. Somebody could come up with a better environment than Windows and it's classy but it's got bugs in it, doesn't it Mark? General failure, general failure, reboot, general failure. But it's the best thing in town that if someone could conceive of something better than Windows, then all the buffs are in there, boy. And you know what he's building? A treasure city. That's all it is. That's all it is. So hopefully when you got saved, you got saved out of that. Because if you brought up a system, every known program would work in it, Apple would work in it, everything would work in it, all the draw programs would work in it, everything you can imagine would work in it, it was a home computer, it was on a PC, you wouldn't have to worry about money anymore. But what did you accomplish? That's going to be used for pornographic, the transmission of pornographic material. It's going to be used by wicked people as well as by righteous people. When the balance sheet comes in, you did not do one, this world is passing away, the systems of the future will make our present computers, analog, digital, series, everything, it will be baby stuff, nothing at all. Because the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden where? In Jesus Christ. So through the blood of Jesus Christ, through the blood of Jesus Christ, through the blood of Jesus Christ, through the blood of Jesus Christ, through the blood of Jesus Christ, through the blood of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is halfway between Egypt and where we're going. Egypt represents getting saved out of the world. The Holy Spirit is our law. He represents the giving of the law in Sinai. That's where the church, that's as far as it is. We heard all about it this morning, that's as far as where the church is. Now, this third thing, what if Egypt and the Passover means what it does, and Pentecost means what it does. That's how you begin to answer people. This is what I mean. This was written for our admonition. This is what it means. It means that we're going, that there's an enemy in our inheritance. Christians are unaware of it. They feel it was done on Calvary. But God did it in Egypt. God smote the gods of Egypt. Yeah, but Egypt is not the land of promise. So that raises the question that if this was written for our admonition, and if the enemy is in our land, the big question is, what does Canaan typify? Which, of course, we talk about a great deal. What I'm asking in another way is, what is the goal of salvation? Oh, could I use the overhead now? I've got the neatest transparencies. All the technical wizards have rushed to my help, Bob Porcelli and Marcos, and I have the most beautiful color transparencies there. And I can't show them, because this thing is, as Bill said, it's great. So everybody pray. We need an overhead. We need a screen. We need something that does not look slopped up, but looks cool and nice, because I've got the overheads right there. And it tells you what the goal of salvation is. Okay? Put a little tension in the situation. All right. Now, what is the land of promise? What does it represent? And this is a biggie. There is a one Christian 500,000 can answer that question. One over 500,000. Divide one by 500,000, and you'll find out what percent of people understand what Canaan represents. If you don't believe me, go ask 500,000 people. And if you get one, then my ratio is incorrect. Okay? Yes, the rest of God. You wouldn't get that. You get that because you're in this church. But go ask your friends. Ask them what it means. They might come up with that. But then say, well, that's true. We get that from Hebrews. But what is the rest of God? And what scripture do you use for that? We're not there yet. Have you had any points of tension in your life this week? So have we all. We're not there yet. God is still working out things in our life. Is that right? Does Adam get in the seat every once in a while? He's in there. He's alive. And you give him. And see, God keeps pushing the hot buttons. Keeps pushing the hot buttons. And when he does, Adam comes to life. And then you have a chance to tell the Lord, this is wrong. I'm not living with this thing. See? The enemy in the land. That's the enemy in the land. Now let's think about it for a minute. All right. So far we've said that Canaan, one of the things that Canaan, it represents many things. It represents our inheritance. Okay. Where we're going. Remember we said you're telling someone who asked you, what do you mean a new thing? He went to the book of Joshua. He said, this is written, okay? And then say, by a new thing, we mean what Canaan represents. We're going to have to fight a battle to get. God did not save us to just come out of Egypt. He did not save us to just come out of the world. He saved us to enter the land. But what is the land? Yes, Angelo? The other part of what I was thinking is to be made an image of God. Those are the two big goals. Now where's the second part found? Now this is extremely important. What does that say? That we all might come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man through the measure and measures of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. That's the land. Now there are a lot of Christians in the world. A lot of them. And there isn't one in 500,000 that can give you that answer. It's brand new. It's brand new. This is why we're here. So we can say to people. And they'll say, are you there yet? And what do you say? Now we have to be careful with that. Because some people say, oh, you're just saying we should be like Jesus. Oh, I agree with that. So it's going to, you're going to have to be sharper than that. Because what we're, because people do agree with that. But you see what they're saying is, we all should be trying. See, we all should be trying to be like Jesus. And then you say, this that I'm talking about is as specific as getting saved out of Egypt. It's as specific as the baptism. It's not just something you wander around. It is a program that the Holy Spirit is activating today. It is time for the church to press toward this goal, which is a church without spot or wrinkle, which is not true today by any means. There are awesome problems in the churches. I speak what I do know. There are awesome problems in the Christian churches, in the Pentecostal churches, in the four square churches, in the assembly of God churches. There are awesome problems right now. Things are acting out, see, because people have lost the momentum. They're not caring for the Spirit. And so they're kind of, now they're beginning to talk about how beautiful Jesus makes us have a beautiful life. See, there's nothing going. They're settled at Sinai. And now they're occupied with the, they're used to that. And when people get used to things, they begin to build institutions and, you know, you can buy this and buy that. And they're setting up balloon stands around Sinai. And God is saying, it's time now to move. And you've got to be able to tell people, just like getting saved and getting the baptism, this is what you do. But more than that, you've got to be doing it yourself. So you can't tell someone how to get saved out of Egypt if you're not saved out of Egypt yourself. And you can't tell somebody how to get the baptism of the Spirit and speak in tongues if you don't speak in tongues yourself. You say you ought to do this, but that's not very convincing. Have you speak in tongues? No. Well, let's talk about the weather. Now before you can point people to the program that develops after Pentecost, you have got to, you've got to be experiencing it. And you have got to be, know what you're talking about from the Scriptures. Because real problems come up. Stan was telling us about an incident in a class that he was in some years ago where a lady said, I feel convicted of sin. And everybody got around and said, that's, you can't because Jesus has done it. Something like that, Stan, went on. You remember that incident? Yeah. See, and they don't know. They say, now, talk about buzz terms. Repentance is a buzz term now. But what the Holy Spirit is doing is bringing them into trumpets and the day of atonement, and they don't understand what's going on. And that's your job. That's my job to say, this is what is happening to you. You've been past Pentecost. Now you're in the book of Joshua. You're in the book of Joshua now. Moses is dead. There's a new leadership. He's not a teacher. He's a warrior. He thinks in terms of war, strategy, tactics. God has appeared to him as a man of war. He's into the 24th Psalm. Well, are you experiencing? Yes, I'm experiencing. Well, now tell me how you're experiencing. God is showing me the areas of my personality that are not at rest in God. God is showing me the areas in my personality that are not in the image of Jesus. God is showing you that. So you go to heaven. Has nothing to do with heaven. Heaven is not the land. That's hard to shake. The land is unity with God, oneness with God, and God's image. That's the land. It has nothing to do with heaven. Heaven is not the land. Heaven is where sin began. You know, I seriously doubt, I'm not sure whether adults can cope with that or not. I don't think the young people have any problem with it at all. I'm not sure adults could ever be able to cope. Can we cope with that here? Can we cope? I mean, do we really grasp that? When someone says save to you, what does that mean? It's entering the rest of God. It isn't going anyplace. It has nothing to do with going anyplace. That's couched in people's mind. If I'm going to do it to the end, I'll go to heaven when I die. It's almost inescapable. It's so much a part of our thinking, that it may take a generation to change that. That's almost impossible. See, the spirit realm is where sin began. That's also difficult for us to understand. But the problem, see, every other religion that I know of teaches that spirit is good and matter is evil. See, there were many religions in Rome, and when Constantine made Christianity popular, the churches absorbed a lot of stuff. And one of the things the churches absorbed was that flesh is bad and spirit is good. That's very common in Eastern religions. In fact, the whole idea, the Buddhist religion, the whole idea is to escape, escape the world, escape it, pass into the nirvana, attain nirvana, attain the spirit. That's the backwards of Christianity. That's the backward. When God created the physical realm, he said it is very good. He didn't say it was very bad. It's a source of evil. I hate it. It's ill. Just wait till you go to heaven. No, no, no. God had his belly full of spiritual sin long before the earth was ever created. And the spirit realm became chaotic, and it's chaotic to this day. And it will continue to be chaotic until God tears down that thing at the hands of the church. The spirit realm will continue to be a mess. The spirit realm is a mess. And we were not created to go to heaven. That was not God's purpose in creating man. God created man to govern, to govern everything, but particularly the earth. Remember in Revelation 5, thou hast made us kings, and we shall rule on the earth. But what happened prior to the creation of the earth was rebellion. And rebellion is a civil war. It's against rulership. It is a contest over who's got the word of power. What they call today the bully pulpit. See, that's the question. That was the question that Satan raised. I want to do this. I want to do this. And God, instead of destroying the whole lot of them, said, okay, I'll create rulers. I'll create a whole new class of rulers, but I want to prove them first. Now until you understand that, you won't understand the kingdom of God, what's happening with you, or the book of Joshua, or anything else. It's a big cognitive leap. It's a big leap of the way you conceive of Christianity. It's a big leap that what you were created for was to incarnate the throne of God, to extend it, and to make it visible. God was seen of angels. Remember that when Jesus came? He was seen of angels. God has become incarnate in Christ. Christ, the incarnation of God, is being formed in us. The incarnation is being formed in us, though we're in animal bodies. When this body is changed in accordance, if we be found worthy of the change in the body, or if we become competent and eligible for the first resurrection, see, if by any means I may attain, we may attain that by counting all things but garbage, that we may win Christ. I'm telling you, this is not a shoo-in. This is God's best. It is the end of the age. It is the consummation of all things. It is the time of greatest spiritual danger and great right now. Believe it. And this is your one shot for eternity. It will never come up again. You will prove yourself now. You'll be called what you are. You'll be chosen what you probably are, or you wouldn't be here, but you're going to have to be proven faithful, and you're going to have to be proven down to the last stringing nerve in your personality. You and I are going to have to be proven absolutely. You can quail at that and say, I don't want it, and run home like it isn't me. Or you can say, Lord, if that's what you said, I believe it, and I give glory to your name like Abraham, and I want it. And that's my testimony. I want it. I don't care what it costs. I want it. God will have to take care of the cost part. I want it, and I will not talk myself out of it. I want it. I want it more than I want the world. I want it. And it's here now. It's here for you. That's the way God works, you know. He puts out something, and it's there, like Christ walking in the street, or whatever God does when he moves, you better catch it when it's going by, because it comes by once. There's a window, and you go through that window, and when it closes, that doesn't mean God doesn't love us, or that we're not saved in the sense of going in the new age of righteousness or anything else. But this thing, this leadership, this Gideon group, this first, this anointing, this arc of covenant business, God has given us so many types. It's today. It's today. It's now. It's the first fruits, and it's something within you bubbles up, and you say, yeah, that's for me. You can have it, or you can talk yourself out of it, or let someone else talk you out of it, in which case you lose your crown. That's how you lose paradise. But what's at issue is crowns, rulers, rulership, and that is your land. That's what God made you for, to be his throne. That's why you're here today, and God made you to be his throne, the throne of the Almighty God, and you are God's answer to Satan's rebellion. So you are God's answer to that. He rebelled when he had everything going for him. We're obeying God when we're hanging on by the skin of our teeth. See, God is saying to the angels, you see, you fell, you had everything, and look at the mess you made. Look at those bits of mud down there. They're believing you. They've never been where you've been, Satan. They've never had the instruments created in them. They've never had all the glory and the joy and the peace and the beauty, and still they hang in there and say, God is true. God is just. That's what's going on right now. That's what's going on right now. Could you explain that to someone? Could you tell them about the land if they said, what does Canaan mean? What do you mean it doesn't mean heaven? How do you answer that? Do you have an answer? I want to answer not to the question I'm asking. Belinda? Well, it's not just what's to deliver, it's what's to keep continuing. See, that's the point. How can it be a type of heaven? Is there enemies in heaven? Are we going to enter heaven by circling the wall and going from one city and using this tactic, and then is this how we're going to enter heaven? Are there enemies in heaven that we have to dispossess to get there? And that's logic and philosophy. Where in the Bible does it say that heaven is our goal? See, that's the point. Where does it say that? But everybody, one woman wrote and said it's all through the Bible. It isn't anywhere in the Bible. But what you believe, that we're called to oneness with God, the marriage of the Lamb, you've got Bible. That we're predestined to be in the image of Jesus, you've got Bible. But they have no Bible. You're saying the land of promise is to enter into the rest of God, meaning to be living in God and doing His perfect will. You've got Bible. That's the rest. And there are enemies opposing us. But they have no Bible. Kathy? Right on. And Joshua's a type of Jesus. In what way is Jesus changing? He's changing from what to what? From a shepherd to a warrior. From a shepherd to a warrior. So we can expect change in the music. We can expect change in the minister. Lonnie? Well, and he was not about entering into God's plan. And there is an all-empowering piece of transfiguration. I mean, you'll hear it in the other pieces. See, Moses and Elijah were attacked with Christ, weren't they? Moses and Elijah were attacked with Christ. That is right. Well, Elijah was attacked with Christ. So Moses was attacked with Christ. And why is Moses about to enter into the rest of God? Well, you've got to know this about types. I say about types, you look at them out of the corner of your eye. You can't take every detail of a type. They fall down. You can't build doctrine from types. All that types do is support something that's written in the New Testament. And Moses appears as a type of Christ, and he's a great shepherd that led his people out of Egypt. But you can't take the fact that they fought over the wives that he married, or any of the little details of his life, or he had a mask on his face, or anything else. This is a type of Christ. He'd be in trouble fast. So always remember that about types. You don't get rigid with types. Now, why he was on the Mount of Transfiguration with Elijah is because he's in the spirit realm with Jesus, which shows us that people in the spirit realm are very much aware of what's going on in the earth, and they're participating in it in some way. If not, the whole thing doesn't make any sense. If all the members of the body of Christ, beginning with Abel, and hearing what we're saying tonight, if the scripture isn't unfolding to them as it is to us here, the whole thing doesn't make any sense. Because otherwise we're saying a tiny, tiny fragment of the body of the Messiah is going to go on to the Feast of Tabernacles, and the rest of the body is out of luck, because they're dead. No, we stand on that in Peter, that says they'll be judged after men as though they were in the flesh. The whole body's going on together. And they were discussing with Christ his decease that he should accomplish at Jerusalem. But that's not the land of promise. Now, if Moses is in the kingdom, of course he is. But his life, remember the incidents of his life were written for our admonition. And they tell us something very important, that in the beginning, when they came out, he said, smite the rock. See, that's spoken about Christ, that he was smitten on the cross, and the waters of eternal life come out. But see, that rock followed them through the wilderness. And that rock was Christ, Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 10. But when that happened again, much later, Moses remembered how it was in the beginning, and God said, speak to the rock, because Christ is not going to be crucified again. He's not going to be smitten. The rock is not going to be smitten again. And he just said, speak to it, speak to it. And Moses was trying to do the old thing. And God said, you weren't listening, you weren't careful, you don't go to the land. Now, that is a lesson to us. Don't try to smite the rock. You know, we're getting up to going into the land of promise. Christ is changing from that form. He's come now as a general. You remember it says in Hebrews, he was once offered to, he was once, for one offering. Now, how does it go in Hebrews 10, the end of the chapter, there where it says, and as Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, he shall appear the second time without sin. Remember, without sin. So, he took care of the sin once. And as Stan was bringing it out Sunday night, there remains no more sacrifice for sin. If you go out and sin willfully, God isn't going to crucify Christ again. There's no more. God said, this is my best shot. It's over. We're not going to smite the rock again. This is a new ballgame, people. This is not the same stuff. We're talking now about the invasion of the earth. Actually, if you want a place that is our land, it's the earth. Scripture, second time. Ask of me and I'll give you the nations and the farthest reaches of the earth for your inheritance. And we are co-heirs of the nations and the farthest reaches of the earth. There's nothing, says nothing about inheriting heaven. So, it's totally unscriptural. You've got all the scripture. If you start in on this tactic, I'm telling you, you've got a whole Bible. But I guess someone who's trying to say that Canaan represents heaven. In no way is it a picture of heaven. In no way is it a picture. It's a picture of what God spoke concerning man. That he would be in God's image. He would be the son of God. He would be male and female. God spoke that. And Satan in his rebellion came and occupied man. See, the first land of promise, the first fulfillment is our own personality. That's why it says possess your soul. The first thing that we have to possess is our soul. That's what the battle is. See, that's why Satan accents the externals, rapture, heaven, and all this. That doesn't get at the battle. The battle is in us. We want peace with God, but we've got an enemy in there that says you can't have it. We want to be like Jesus, but there's an enemy in our land, in our personality, that says you can't do it. It's impossible. Oh, I know what the rest is. Heaven. Hey, you missed the point entirely. That's not scriptural. Is there a heaven? Sure, there's a heaven where God, Jesus, and the angels are. And when we go there and we die, hopefully we'll go to a place of rest. Although God has said to me several times in the last few years, you don't know anything about what's going to happen to you when you die, so occupy yourself with the present because it's going to be different from anything you imagine, so don't dwell on it. He's told me that several times. You don't know anything about what it's going to be like. One of the best visions we know is Rebecca Springer's Intramurals and Beyond the Veil, and she said, this is a long trip she's been having, she said, I gained the experience that these were lessons like you'd teach a Sunday school child. They weren't really the things that happen. They were just flannel graph material. That's what she said in her book. So all these things are symbolic and everything, but the Lord told me several times, you don't know anything about what it's like or what it's going to be like. It's going to be different from anything you imagine. So just concentrate on this world. It's not when we die and go up there and do God knows what. Peter Marshall's wife saw me just planting roses, gardening. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. I saw, I think I saw Audrey's dad right after he died. He was standing in something that looked like upstate New York in the woods with a puzzled look on his face. So we don't know. We just don't know. That's not our goal. Our goal is what God has spoken to us about. It's about being married to Jesus. That's our goal and there's an enemy there. Now God has not talked about it because historically speaking, the church had to have it all in the beginning and then lose it and get it back a lock and a bar at a time. And we're at the time now God is showing us, hey, this is where the goal is. This is what the goal of salvation is. It's I'm changing you so because I'm coming. You won't find in any place that the kingdom is going. The kingdom is coming. There isn't any place that says the city is going, which, you know, in Hebrews 10, no Hebrews 13, it says we're looking for the city that is to come. We look for a city that is to come. Nothing's going. It's all coming. But you see, it can't come because first God has to have a people who can govern it. When he gets the people who have governed it, then paradise will come to the earth. This is where in the beginning, this is where paradise was in the region of the Persian Gulf. It's not there now. That's the worst scene of conflict in the world between the Jews and the Arabs right there, right, right at the where the Tigris and Euphrates, that's where paradise is supposed to be. And God moved it into a spirit realm because he had nobody that could hold it. And then he brought Jesus so that we could be all forgiven and get that dealt with now through the body and blood of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We're being prepared to bring paradise into the earth. That's why it says the creation is groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God, because the creation was made subject to corruption and futility. And it will continue in corruption and futility until God can get a first fruits of his church, because you can see the church at large. The church at large is not about to lay down their life and follow God. They're not going to do that. Most Christians, that comes to them as doom and gloom and overextended and you're not real and all of this. They don't realize there's been people from the beginning of time that have loved God with all their might. And that people God has, and it's up to us whether we're with them or not. But they don't know what we know. What we know is coming now through the spirit of revelation. And through us, it's being broadcast out into that cloud of witnesses. And they're up there with notebooks. You better believe it. This is a school room for them. And they're learning. But you see, knowledge isn't the thing. It's what the knowledge produces. And they can experience that there, and we're experiencing it here. And they're judged according to men in the flesh, according to 1 Peter 4. So they're watching us. Why were Moses and Elijah there? Why are all these people watching us? Why are all these people groaning? How long, oh Lord, will I avenge our blood on them? And God has made us kings and we shall reign on the earth. We're waiting to get on the earth. So God has all these spirits of righteous people made perfect and they're up there in the heavenly Zion waiting till the heavenly Zion come down and close the earthly Jerusalem. And we're at the climax of the age and God is telling the whole universe through those in the church today who have the spirit of wisdom and revelation, this is my plan. They guide without knowing it. They don't know. You don't learn by virtue of dying. That's not our teacher. They're up there waiting to see who's right. It hasn't been played out yet. Every word of God must be tried in a furnace of earth seven times. This is where it's tried. This is where it's purified and tested. And they had their beliefs and they went and some of them believe in predestination, some of this. Dying didn't change that. They've been gathered to their people. It's now today to the church that the understanding is coming. Now they've got to wait to see who's right. They're all waiting for the resurrection to get their reward. And if they were cheated out of it by bad preaching, they'll be joined with their preachers and they'll have to endure it. And Christ will judge each one fairly. If they had bad teaching, they still had their conscience. I mean, we can be taught it's all right to fornicate, but we still got our conscience, we ought to know better. And we've got the word. See? Remember Jesus said, he was talking about the rich man and Lazarus? He said, send somebody to tell my brothers. They got brothers in the prophet. If they won't hear them, they wouldn't hear somebody that was raised in the dead. It's as simple and plain as that. There's no surprises. If you and I take advantage of the window of opportunity that's open in our day, we will reap a great reward. If we, I'm not talking about ministry now, I'm talking about your personal relationship with Jesus. Like Paul said, he didn't say, I'm pressing on that I may save the whole world. He's pressing on to save himself. That I, Paul, the age, may attain the resurrection. See, that's what's at issue. That I'm through faith, I may win Messiah. He's still trying to win Messiah. Philippians 3, verse 8, I believe it is. Still trying to, by any means, I may win Messiah. Be found in him, not have him on righteousness. If I may know the power of resurrection, the fellowship. See, that's the goal. That's the goal. And ministry should be a spinoff of this. Ministry must never become the goal. Ministry must never become the goal. It's a spinoff. You remember in Acts, there were teachers and prophets in the church, and what were they doing? They were praying to God, anything of the kind. Somebody find that in Acts 6, where the Holy Spirit had separated Barnabas and Saul, and see what they were doing. Logistics. I appreciate your enthusiasm. They were ministering to the Lord. They were ministering to the Lord. And out of that maloo, no doubt to everyone's surprise, the Holy Spirit, speaking with authority, separated Barnabas and Saul. Now, that's the purpose of the church. The purpose of the church is to minister to the Lord. You'll find that also in Acts 2. They were all together, breaking bread. When you make the ministry the goal, you blow the whole program. The ministry flows from ministry to the Lord. Ministry to the Lord will result in ministry to people, even if it's a ministry of intercession. One way or another, it will result in ministry to people. But if you put the cart before the horse, you get into all kinds of... You begin to try to sell to people, and then you've got a man-made thing. Ministry comes, all true ministry comes from the attitude of Paul. If I may know Him. And you see, as you come to know Him, and you're brought down to death by coming to know Him, then the resurrection life flows out onto other people. Look at Saul. Look at Paul and that other guy, Barnabas, in jail there. And what are they doing? They're not praying to get out of jail. What were they doing? Praising, singing hymns to God. What a testimony that was. And through the Bible, that's how God works. You minister to the Lord. Look how that lady came and poured that perfume on Jesus' feet. She had no more idea of saving the souls of the man on the moon, but she was worshiping the Lord. And Jesus said, this that you have done will be spoken from the Lord. That's true. Ministry must never become the goal. The goal is to adore and worship God. And the ministry flows out of that relationship. The purpose of marriage, hopefully, is love. It's not to produce children. I'll go marry this person because I want a child. Well, how about the person? Well, I didn't care a thing about the person. Children, children, children, children, children on the right hand, children on the left hand. There's something that happens first. It's called love. Huh? That's right. I'm telling you the truth. Otherwise, we're into idolatry. Ministry flows from the worship of God. You think about it in the Bible. The great things of the Bible came about as people were worshiping God, loving God, obeying God, doing his will, hearing from God. It's just as restful and wonderful as that. Our job is to worship God. And see now the church is turning and looking again to the external. Now look at our nation. Look at Clinton. Look at this. Look at that. Look at that. It's not the issue. God isn't looking at them. It says in Revelation, the outer cord is given to the Gentiles and they will trample it on their foot. That's going to happen. You want to boggle yourself down? Fine. Curse Clinton. Curse the liberals. Fine. It'll do you a lot of good. Like pickles soaked in vinegar. It'd be wonderful for you. All kinds of vitamins. There must be vitamins. It tastes so rotten. It must be good for you. But if you want to get with the Lord, the Lord isn't going to come to you and say, oh God, speak to me. That Bill Clinton, he's a self-seeking person. He isn't going to say that. You know what he's going to say? You are a self-serving person. That's where the land is. You have to help Bill Clinton enter into his land. But you're going to have to work like 60 to enter into your own. True or not? True. So we have to keep hearing it and hearing it. Because we've been at Pentecost and there's something new and it's specific. It's like being born again. It's like receiving the baptism. It's a process. And if you're all unpacked and sprawled out in the knees in Zion, you're probably not in it. But if you're praying and you're saying, God, what's up for today? What's going on today? You're going to find that God is dealing with you about worldliness, about the lust of your flesh, and about self-will. He's going to be dealing with you because those are the three big enemies and all their children and grandchildren, great-grandchildren of worldliness and all its symptoms, bodily appetites and all the symptoms thereof, and self-will and all its symptoms. Are in our land. And they're keeping us from the image of Jesus and they're keeping us from union with God. And God is ready now to dispossess them. He's ready. And so from the book of Joshua, we learn what you do. You just attack wholesale because now you're a big soldier and you know exactly what to do, right? No. You've got to hear from God. The only mistake Joshua made was taking something for granted and not asking the Lord. Moses made this mistake because the people pressured him. He says, hear me, you rebels, must I fetch? You see, he was victimized by being a leader of people and their complaining got to him and he acted rashly. Did not happen to Joshua. Joshua's problem was he had success, but he had not learned to take, to ask God about every detail. Ask God about every detail. You don't assume because you won one victory that the next one's going to happen. That's where the enemy gets you. You've got to hear from God every moment of every day. Moses is dead, okay? The past is dead. Christianity as we have known it is dead. It's a new day. And you've got the job of explaining it. After Moses died, the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' servant. He didn't come around the scene new. He had been Moses' servant for many years. He's trained up and he'd been in there in the holy. He knew the Shekinah of God. He knew the glory of God. Israel did not know him Moses' servant. Poured water on Moses' hand. They didn't have faucets in those days. You had to have a servant, add water, dip it out of a bucket. You don't stick your hand in the bucket. I learned that in India. You dip water out of the bucket and you pour it on somebody's hands like that. That's what he did for Moses. Poor Joshua when Moses died. Will, read between the lines. Why do you think he keeps saying be strong enough of good courage? Always before when he bombed, he could run back. Moses made it right. But no more. Hey, Moses, oh God, where's Moses? Son, there isn't any more Moses. It's you. Me? There was a lot of guys that wanted that spot, wasn't there? But they were somewhere down when the earth opened up, they ended up down there. Moses, my servant is dead. Now, therefore, cross this Jordan. And in the types, we find circumcision occurring soon after. But in the types, there's three great deaths that you have to die as a Christian. And Jordan is the third one. That's the one that God is calling upon his church today. The first one is the death to the world, when we finally decide to come out of the world. And people have a hard time with that, don't they? We have many worldly Christians. Worldly Christians are fairly common. They're good people. They love God. They're decent people. They'd be a good person to live next door to you. They never really have come out of the world. They still think like the world, act like the world. And thereby, they miss the best that God has for them. They miss the best that God has for them. You have to come out and make a clean break from the world. It's very important. Jordan, that's the first death. The second death is that Sinai. What does that death do? Right. The law revived and I died. Sin. The law, by the law, is the knowledge of sin. We have to face that moral law. And we have to say, my anger's got to go. My lusts have got to go. They've got to go. I've practiced them. I never realized God could give me deliverance. But He can. He can take it out of your flesh. It's alien. It doesn't belong there. Worldliness is your participation in the culture. That's all it is. How embedded in the culture are you? You've got one foot in the church and one in the culture. Sooner or later, you will be forced to a decision. Sooner or later, remember that, you'll be forced to a decision. And that decision will affect whether you're in God's first roots or not. The same is true of the lusts of the flesh. They all have to go. They all have to go. You can't do them. You go a city at a time. God will show them to you, one at a time. He'll push buttons that'll cause this to come out, that to come out. And when it does, you don't say, that's me, or I inherited this, or it's too big for God, or I'll try not to do it again. You don't do those things. You say, Lord, this is in me. Thank God. Thank you that you showed me this is in my flesh. Now, Lord, I confess it to you. And the hour in which we're living, that will go. This is an hour of deliverance. It will go. Sometimes you feel it go. I've had very dramatic deliverances. Most of them are not dramatic. You just kind of go on God's word, and sooner or later, you see the fruit of it. Some of them can really be dramatic. You can feel them go. They're resident in various parts of our physical body. And I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. Well, now we've come to the time that Hebrews is talking about. He will appear without sin unto salvation, again in Malachi. The messenger of the covenant shall come, and he shall purify the sons of Levi. That's now. That's now. And he purges them with laundry soap. Boy, it isn't dove or anything else. It's the real stuff. Lye and fat. It's put together and stronger in sin. Laundry soap. And I mean it's got to come out. The lying devil has come out of your tongue. The gossiping spirit that's in your tongue, it's got to come out. If it doesn't, it will keep you out of God's first fruits. The first fruits are described in Revelation 14. Remember that? In those found no guile? That's in Revelation 14, isn't it? The first fruits stood on Mount Zion. There is a first fruits. When you tell the Lord, you catch yourself criticizing. You say, well, that's me. Everybody does it. No, no. You get yourself out of God's first fruit with that attitude. When you find yourself criticizing, what do you do? You say, it's sin. It's sin. I'm not supposed to do this. Judge is not. Be not judged. It's sin. Sin. If you don't do that, it will never leave. It's like saying to your dog, get off the bed, will you please? Forget it. If your dog's anything like our dogs, hey, it gets nowhere. I mean, you have to talk in language that dogs understand. And you'll find that dogs are bilingual. They're very bilingual. Get off the bed. You say it in Hebrew, you say it in English, whatever. Dogs understand. They're very bilingual. And you have to treat the devil like that. You have to treat the devil like that. He's not sure that you mean it. You have to say this filthy thing does not belong in me anymore. Father, see it. It belongs in the hell and the lake of fire. It's a filthy thing. You've got to go on and on like that till Fido gets the message, I'm not supposed to be on the bed. They really mean business this time. And when we feel that flesh, you know, the things in their cause, they say, oh, don't let me go. Don't let me go. You know, all your fun is going and everything that feels good is going. And, you know, you've got a pretty bleak future coming up there. Don't worry. It's going to whine and wheedle. You better come at it hard or it will stay there. That's your land. That's your land. There's chariots of iron there. There's sneakers there like the Gibeonites. There's all kinds of idolatry there. This Canaan is a type of our personality to begin with. It has to be taken. Israel never did. They never did. They never had a heart to fight. They go just so far and quit. They get just far enough and then they didn't want to put their lives in jeopardy anymore. Don't you see? When they had a place for their wife and kids, they didn't want to go out and put their lives in jeopardy again. Because every time you go against the enemy, you put your life in jeopardy. They didn't have a heart to do that. Anyway, well, let them keep the high places and we're down here and we'll learn to get along somehow. The Philistines didn't want to get their lives in jeopardy. Nobody wants to go in a war. You know, I mean, you shoot at people, they're going to shoot at you. You know, that's not the idea of a good time. So the idea is get it over with as quick as possible. If we've got enough room and we've got our five acres here and we've got our vineyards and we've got probably any more than that if you've got livestock. Well, so? The Philistines, they're not the bad guys. They've got to make a living too. And forget, God said if you leave one of them alive, child, grandmother, man, woman, anyone, you leave them, they're going to ruin you and they did. And that's what God's saying to us. You leave one thing in your personality, one cute little thing. I don't care what it is. Something may seem innocent to you. It may be a flirtation. It may be gossip. It may be swearing. It may be, I don't know what it could be. But when God points that out to you, you get tough for that thing. You lay your life on the line. I don't care whether I live or die. That thing's going to go. And Satan will threaten you. You do that and I'm going to kill one of your children. Oh, he's got all kinds of tricks like that. Oh, yeah. It's the time you really get tough with it, you get a symptom of some kind, you know, a bump or something, pain. I've had, at my age, you get pains. If I had a nickel for all my pains and aches and serious symptoms, I'd be doing pretty good. You have to learn to ignore them. The older you get, I suppose there's more to ignore. You got to put your life on the line. So I got a symptom. So I'm going to die tomorrow. That's nothing to do with it. You are going out of my personality. I'm not going to have it. That's the way you have to go or it's going to hang in there. That's called war. How do you picture that fighting going on between the Israelites? You ever stop to think about that? That wasn't a Sunday school battle. That was men out there hacking each other to death, hacking each other to death. Screams of the wounded, horses, chariots, people with arrows, one end of the arrow sticking out of their back and the other one out of their stomach. As real people fighting a real war. And this is a type, these things were written for our admonition. You know what I mean? When I hear too much about the beautiful Jesus and how beautiful the Christian life is, I think, what are you talking about? This is war and it's bloody and it's to the death. Somebody's going to win in your personality. Somebody's going to win in there. It's either going to be you or it's going to be your enemy. What he'll try to do is let you get just so far and then he'll give you a tough one. You come up against and it doesn't budge and you figure, oh well maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. That's not the way warriors operate. You don't say that's the way it's supposed to be. God said put it all to death. God meant put it all to death. He doesn't have to send you a telegram. He means put it all to death. So you put it all to death. Faith is strict obedience to the revealed will of God with awareness of the value of the reward for doing so. I've got that on a colored overhead. Don't you wish you were looking at that right now? Probably not. That's what faith is. It's strict obedience to the revealed will of God. And God is ready today. You've got to know the times and seasons. You've got to know what God is doing. I go in places and I listen to the burden of preaching and the music going on and I think these people don't know where they're going or what they're doing. It's not what God is saying. You've got to hear what God is saying. Is God telling us he wants to mobilize to overthrow the government? Is that what God is telling us? Is God telling us that not to worry about anything because next week the rapture is going to come? Is that what God is telling us? What is God saying? What is God saying? There's more mouth speaking than you can listen to. But what is God saying? And when we find out in our life what God is saying to us then we're strictly obedient. It doesn't matter what anyone else does. We're strictly obedient. But we've got to hear. And the only way that can happen is through prayer. And you can't come in with an agenda. You've got to be, there's a place for agendas, but you've got to come in with a certain sense of expectation and listening to see what is God saying to me. And then the devil will say to you, well, you don't want to hear that. It's terrible. It's terrible. You're just about to suffer a dreadful disease and you're going to die shrieking in agony. And you'll be up off your knees and out working in the garden in less time than it takes to tell. Because every time you hit your knees, raw fear hits you. It's one way he works. I'm telling you some of his tactics. So what do you do in a case like that? You have to see God's hand. You say, all right, Lord, that's fine. You don't know whether it's God or Satan telling you this awful thing. Okay, God, if this is what is going to happen to me, praise the Lord. I love you, Lord. It's so wonderful. And then all that will blow away. But see, you've got to be willing. Remember he said, Abraham, take your son, get him up there, kill him. He had to be willing. That old guy got up the next morning, a couple of his servants and Isaac, the firewood, and Abraham carried the fire. Probably a little spark or something wrapped in a leaf or whatever they carried. He carried the fire. He carried the fire, all right. For all he knew, he had to go through with it. And you can't get into the place where God wants you until your life is on the line like that. You've got to be prepared. You don't run off and do something rash. You think the Lord told you to go and drown yourself. Your common sense tells you that's not the Lord. People do do those things. But you've got to pray through this fear and this commotion and say, Lord, if I die, you know, I've got children. If I die, Lord, you can take better care of my children than I can. Each one of these things has got to be dealt with. Jordan, coming out of Egypt is death to the world. That should be a clean death in your life. People should know when they meet you, he's not the same old guy. Second is death to sin. But this third one, this Jordan, the church has never been there. Individuals have been there. But the church as a whole has never been there. Jesse Penn Lewis and Madame Gayle and Oswald Chambers and a few other people were there. Countless we don't know. But what it is, is death, death to your right to be an independent person and to take your gifts and to do pretty much as you please. To be a normal, I don't want to use that word because we always should be normal, but to have the final say on where you live and where you go and what you do. See, at Pentecost, it's water to the knees. You can pretty well determine what you go. I can go to that church and speak in tongues the same as I can in this one. I can move over here, I can move over there, I can move to Florida, you can get a beautiful house there for $70,000 including ground maintenance and live like a king. Why can't I do that? And initial salvation, yes. And baptism of the Spirit, yes. In the third work, you can't do it. You cannot do it. You give over to the Lord your will. You don't become a willless, passive person. But you live for the will of God and you seek God's will. It's no more, Lord, bless my enterprises. It's, Lord, what is my enterprise? What do you want me to do? Are you ready to do that? There can be no hypocrisy. You're going to be tested. You have to do it. I have to do it. I made it up my mind. That's what I want. I'm living it. I'm not perfect by any means, but I'm living the way I'm telling you. I'm doing God's will. I'm not thinking, well, now Audrey and I are in age and everything, you know, social security and all, we could live nicely in Florida. I'm not thinking. I had nothing to do with Pentecost. I had nothing to do with getting saved. I had to do what Paul's talking about. If by any means I may know him, if I may attend, it's a discreet, concrete thing, past Pentecost, where your life is hidden with Christ and God. And you're not your own. You're not on the throne of your life anymore. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. I know. See, that's death to the old man. But that's where Moses and the priests and the glory are. That's where it is. That's where it's going now. That's Jordan. And it took a new generation to go over there. The old one was so full of belly aching, they didn't have enough thought about anything. All they wanted was their cows. But there was a generation that went across and then they had to be circumcised. They had to come to know the God of Israel and then they had to fight. And that's the generation that you've been born into and your children and your grandchildren. And you've got to teach them that. Don't teach them hypocrisy. Don't do that. That happens, I think, in Christian homes. They go home and then they chew up the preacher and what he said because the preacher isn't perfect. Well, no, you're not. You're going to look a long way before you find a perfect preacher. And when you do, pay him handsomely because they are rare. And I'm not one of them. OK, I got a lot of faults and I'm sure it irritates a lot of people. But you're going to have to comb through that and hear God. And if it's God, then you tell your children there's God in that church and God is to be obeyed, not the pastor. We have to obey him within a cultural framework. But by and large, when he says you have to lay down your life, we don't come home and say something different. Yeah, but that's all right. But darling, if you want to go to Harvard, it's all right and everything is fine. You don't do that. You say the same thing or you're going to find that you're still got one foot in the world. They're still giving in to hate. And if they're going to make it, they'll have to make somebody else their parents. I think I'm a lot of people's parents, a lot of young men. And some of them have told me so. Because their parents aren't doing it and they're not saying it and they're looking for someone who's living it and saying it. And then when they, and let the rest do their doodling doodling because they're going to die in the wilderness. But there's got to be someone that believes God. And when God says, present your body a living sacrifice, you don't chew the fish and spit out the bones and say, well, that doesn't mean what he's talking about. That's something else for some of them. How many know what I'm talking about? You've got to live it. They've got to see it in you. Your grandchildren have got to see it in you. They've got to see that this is not the typical church where people come and then go home and fry the pastor for lunch and have no intention of doing what he says. It's just a song. After a while, it doesn't bother you. After a while, it doesn't bother you. It doesn't convict you. You can get a nerd to it. Oh, we hear that all the time. That's the way he does. There's got to be somebody who hears it and does it. You got your money's worth tonight, I think. Shall we stand?