In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of finding God and experiencing His power and blessings. He highlights the need for guidance and leadership in our lives, especially in times of hopelessness and sorrow. The preacher encourages listeners to have faith and not be dismayed, reminding them that God can work through anyone, regardless of their fears or limitations. The sermon also references the biblical story of David and Goliath, illustrating the importance of being fully committed and relying on God's strength in the face of challenges.

Well, this evening I would like you to turn with me, if you would, to the book of Joshua. And I would like to read, actually, let's back up, if you would, to Deuteronomy. Yes, to turn back one more page there. And verse 7 of chapter 34. I'll begin reading there. Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eyes were not dim, nor his natural vigor diminished. The children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. And so the days of weeping and mourning for Moses ended. Now Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom. And Moses had laid his hand on him. And so the children of Israel heeded him, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses. But since then there has not arisen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. And all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt before Pharaoh, before all of his servants, and in all his land. And by all his mighty power and the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel. Now Joshua chapter 1. And after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses's assistant, saying, Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all of the people, to the land which I am giving them, and the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness of this Lebanon, under the great river, the river Euphrates, and all the land of the Hittites, and the great sea towards the going down of the sun, should be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law of which Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn to it from the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. The book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, that you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then, you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Father, we thank you for your word, and we ask that as we look at it this evening, and as we wait upon you, Lord, that you would bring a message to us. Lord, I don't know what you would want to say to anyone here particularly, but in general, Lord, we ask that this great land, this great promised land of blessing, that you long to bring us all into in our lives, in our ministries, our fellowships into. Lord, that we would be drawn as we look at it tonight, the things that you would say to us as we would choose to lead them there, that you would speak to us. Father, we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, certainly there's no more wonderful place or concept in all the world to be than in the will of God. And I'm sure that as we gather together this evening as servants of the Lord, our lives have been separated, set aside for the things of the kingdom, for the ministry, for the service of the Lord. Therefore, obviously, that's not a hard sell to any of us. It shouldn't be anything other than each one of us knows that the most wonderful place is God's will. Nothing more exciting, nothing more exhilarating, nothing more thrilling is there anything in all the world than to be in God's will, and to be in that promised land, in a sense, of what he calls us to, just like he called the children of Israel into a land that there is no greater place in the world for them to be, no more wonderful place in the world for them to be. But it's also a place that, by the way, of course, comes with no higher price. You kind of get what you pay for, I suppose, as people oftentimes say. And in one sense, that's also true in the Christian life. There's a great inheritance that God has. But there's also, according to the price that we're willing oftentimes to pay, is the degree of the inheritance that we'll know, that we'll enter into. We want to look tonight, I suppose, a little bit of the cost, what that means. But essentially here, when you would look at God's desire for us to be in that land, that promised land, and here is Joshua gives us here kind of a geographical world, of course, a land of Canaan. But there's also another world that each one of us, that God longs for us, not a physical world, necessarily, but a spiritual world. This is real in the kingdom of heaven, in our lives today, as Canaan was to the children of Israel. A land flowing with milk and honey, a land of blessing, a land there filled with houses we didn't build, wells we didn't dig, olive yards and vineyards we didn't plant, fields widened to harvest, the shelves stocked to the brim, that God wants to give, in a sense, spiritually and metaphorically, in a sense, to each and every one of us. But here, the interesting thing is, we look at Joshua, and we look at this man, and watching him want himself to come in, of course, and then to lead the nation of Israel into this land. You hear it, I've entitled my own notes on this, true courage. And as in this section of Joshua, and these verses that we're looking at here. But here's there's some things that I think the true courage requires of somebody, the requirements of courage, what they really are all about, and some of the things that have to happen for real courage to be defined and to come into existence. And I suppose the very first thing that has to happen for personal courage to come to the forefront within our own life, is that I suppose the first thing that has to happen is all of our former or outside sufficiency has to die. Now in this case, it was Moses. Here the children of Israel, one of the critical things amazingly, that they all in a sense almost had to happen within them as Moses had to die. And here with the death of Moses, when you stop to realize a little bit about Moses and what he meant to the children of Israel, when Moses died, the children of Israel were immediately thrown into essentially entirely uncharted territory. They were now all of a sudden with the death of Moses in a place that absolutely would kind of freeze the soul, extend fear upon anyone, their deliverer was dead. Their magnificent deliverer was dead. The champion was gone. The sorrow had to be great. I mean, we've all known what it is to lose loved ones and lose people that have had great participation in our lives in one way or another, but nobody ever lost anybody like the children of Israel had lost when they lost Moses. For he was far more than that. He was their sustainer. Because of Moses, manna came out of heaven. Water came out of rocks. Enemies were destroyed. Every battle that they ever fought and victory they'd known was directly related to Moses's leadership and presence within their life. Wherever they were now, it was something that it was entirely attributed to Moses. He wasn't just a loved man and a dear man, but it was something that literally their spiritual intermediator between them and God it was cut off. It was gone. And for them, the thought of taking Moses away was to take away all blessing in every sense of the word. They were out in the middle, literally of nowhere, all the sustenance, the power of the deliverance, the hope that they'd ever known through every attack, every trial, every difficulty, every hunger pain. It was always coming somehow another through Moses. Everything they knew of God had come from the hand of Moses, the five books of Moses, the Pentateuch written by, of course, Moses. Everything they knew of an understanding of God, the tabernacle, Moses, the priesthood, Moses, civil law, Moses, ceremonial law, Moses, sacrificial law, Moses. How do you come before God? How do you get right before God? How do you live? How do you walk? How do you deal with anything in virtually all of life? It was all Moses. Every aspect of their life, somehow or another, you could trace it right back to Moses. And now Moses, who'd given them the tabernacle, given them the high priest, given them the sacrifice, give them ever whatever relief of guilt they'd ever known. It was Moses through which all of this had come. But you see, one of the things that God, when he wants to bring you and he wants to bring me, he wants to bring us into real personal revival, real personal Canaan, real personal fullness and blessing. God sometimes has to remove all of these external forms of sufficiency, all of these other dependencies, as wonderful as they've been, as glorious as they've been, as great of a service as they've been. The interesting thing is, is you can take people in massive numbers out of Canaan, but out of the wilderness, but they come into Canaan one at a time. They come into Canaan essentially in a whole new dimension where each one has learned ultimately there were all the services and the blessings that men have helped them with. That can get you into the wilderness, but it won't get you out of the wilderness and into the promised land. For one of the fundamental keys, you might say, a blessing and a real spiritual maturity and a fullness within life is that somebody has come into an entirely greater dimension of dependence and fullness and power of life in the Lord than they've ever known before. And sometimes though, in order for that to happen, God has to take away everything that he's given us to get us as far as he's gotten us. He's got to remove it from our heart, to remove it from our hopes. And I'll sometimes almost just isolate us out there in utter emptiness and loneliness or hopelessness for him to be able to bring us to a place where he says, now I can begin to bring you into the promised land. So often at the time, though, immediately all we know is sorrow. It tells us in Deuteronomy 34 that for 30 days they wept and they mourned. I'm sure they did. I'm sure they did day after day when they woke up in the morning and then they realized once again, Moses was not there. Where will we go? What will we do? Who will tell us what to do or how to do it? Who is going to judge? Who's going to lead? Who's going to fight the battles? Who is going to get us anywhere? And immediately the hopelessness and the sorrow that would just sweep over the camp. Maybe tonight we'll go to bed and we'll wake up and there'll be some fresh hope tomorrow. There'll be some new thing, some greater sense of something. But here it goes on for 30 days where the people find themselves weeping and mourning and hopelessness as the great deliverer was dead. But here was something that so often God, who will never compete with anybody, finds himself actually competing with the very vessels and manners and processes that he used to bring us. You know, as far as he's got, he sometimes has to remove it. I'm sure we've all heard and maybe many of us use the illustration of the Antonio Stradivarius violin. And the great story, if there's one of you that doesn't know it, I'm going to say it for that one. But this, you know, the Antonio Stradivarius, this capacity, this man seemed to have historically to be able to do with his oils and preparation and woods and how he could fabricate and put together a violin. It gave it a beauty, not just a physical beauty, but a musical beauty, a tone that came out of it unlike any other violin. And the Antonio Stradivarius violin, supposedly the greatest of all that were ever made by him, and no one ever knew quite how he did it. But as time went on, anybody could ever play and have, I mean, the greatest violinist in the world would always, if they could get their hands on a Stradivarius, they had one. But the tragic thing that also happened for the greatest of violinists is when they had one, people oftentimes attributed his music to the violin. And one particular violinist, very famous as he had, you know, done so beautifully and people loved hearing him and in such a talented violinist. But then he found himself competing with his violin at the accolades at the end. People would stand and they would rave his name, but also the Stradivarius. And he ended up getting jealous of his own violin, jealous of the own tones that came out of the thing is people look there and he felt I'm doing it. And finally, one night out of frustration, when the crowd stood in applause, clapping and shouting, and they're hearing his name, but also the Stradivarius name echoed all the way through. Out of their frustration, he reaches up and he lifts his hands high and he comes crashing down and he hits that Stradivarius and it turns to splinters before their eyes. And they're devastated. They can't believe what they have just seen. But then the violinist, he walks over to violin case that sat next to him all the way through his concert that evening, he opened up the violin case and he pulled out and he lifted up a violin and he said, ladies and gentlemen, this is the Stradivarius. That was a $20 violin. I played the music on tonight. But sometimes God has got to come into where something happens to where we actually have this human capacity that the music we've heard, the way we've heard it, the tones that came out of it, the whole aroma of it, the way it was just there. There was something there that collectively, oh, we attributed much to God as, as have participated in somehow or another, but there was a process or there was a way or there was somebody or there was something else in it that somehow or another, it was the two of them together that made it work. That can get you out of, out of the wilderness or out of Egypt and in the wilderness, but it will not get you into Canaan. God will not share his glory with any man in here. God has got to bring it. It is so often a person that the personal hopelessness sometimes, if he's ever going to bring them into great and personal and deep victory and hear the children of Israel or specifically Joshua with them, I suppose as well, had to realize there that yes, God says to them, the past is over. And, uh, in a sense there, and he's, he's telling him now, he says, well, it's time to move on. And sometimes there, God has got to remove in a sense, all other thought or hope or dream of blessing until something happens in our own heart where they get truly cries out, God, if I'll ever get into blessing, if I'll ever get into the land now, if I'll ever know the milk and honey, if I'll ever drink of a well there, if I'll ever eat of the vineyards, you will have to do it alone. You will have to take me the rest of the way. And God has to bring us to that. It's the most wonderful thing in process. It won't get you there in and of itself by any means, but as part of it, it's at the, it's at the foundation of it. It's it there at the core of it. That to me, anytime I've ever found people that I looked at, that I had a great sense of what God had done within them and, uh, you know, within, you know, what he had taught them and how, and the rest and the power and the victory and the triumph that I so looked at their life and found myself amazed by. I was never anything I could attribute it. The man looked there and he had something other than God and his power and his indwelling that had done it for him. There may have been many friends of which there always are along the way, many encouragers, many blessings, many events that they'd been at, all sorts of other things that kind of participate along the way. But in the final analysis, it was the spirit of God that had brought them into this all by himself. And they had come to this place of a loneliness from everything else and a desire for God that brought them in and ushered them into a whole new personal spiritual dimension within their own life. That's at the foundation. I think of getting into the land, the children of Israel had to have this happen, but it wasn't that alone for once a second aspect, I believe of, of, of courage in a sense that courage not only has to have the outside and other sufficiencies die, but now secondly, the word of God must become supreme, truly supreme. As he says in verse seven of chapter one, he says, only be strong and very courageous that you may observe to do according to all the law, which Moses, my servant commanded. You do not turn to it from the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. The book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in a day and night and you that you may observe to do according to all that is written it for them. I will make your way prosperous. And then you will have good success here. There's something where now what has to happen is the place that all of the other sufficiencies once had, the place that all of the other voices came from, the place that all the people or events or other things that may be once there, they're all now replaced by the word of God. Now, you know, God takes Moses away from Joshua, but then he turns to Joshua and he says, now, Moses, I don't know, Joshua, I'm giving you the word of God. As I was with Moses, I'll be with you. And here there was something there that Joshua, I suppose, had to truly learn the very simple fact that Moses never in himself ever did anything, ever did a thing. I mean, as wonderful of a man is his history in the Bible, you know, you know, can associate with him that ought to be attributed to him. But in the final analysis, he never did a thing. He never opened a river. He never destroyed one enemy. He never brought one crumble a cracker out of the sky. He never got one stinking drop of water out of Iraq. He never did his thing. All he did was speak what he was told. That's all he did. God was the one that did every bit of it. God was the one that opened the river. God was the one that the water, the water came out of the rock. God was the one that brought the man of God was the one that opened the earth and sucked them in. God was the one that destroyed the enemies. Moses just simply opened his mouth and said what he was told to do. He observed to do what God put within his heart. That was it. That's all he did. He was no different than any other man. If anything, as the Bible says, Moses, when it goes, there was Moses that said it, but I don't think he's lying. I think he met it with all of his heart. But he said that Moses was the meekest of all men on the face of the earth. I believe he was. I truly believe Moses was the meekest man. Well, everybody else would maybe think he would by nature be very proud or easily be arrogant or easily be somewhat self-sufficient or something other than what he the meekness. I believe the things that actually happened around Moses and the things that when God spoke to him and then Moses went and did it. If that is truly what is happening within somebody's heart, they will always produce meekness, not pride, not when they really understand what's going on. And here, Moses, you know, God tells him, he says, I want you to go speak to Pharaoh. And here in the plague is going to come. I mean, Moses here, I mean, and then he tells him whether frogs are going to come or lice are going to come as if he knew lice's name. OK, lice, all you little fellas, listen to me, you know, as if they knew his voice and they could respond, jump to it, you know, or hear froggy, you know, something leap, you know, or whatever Moses knew, he never talked to a frog in his life. And no, no lice knew his name, no disease, no plague knew his name. He just stood there and said these things that came out of his mouth as God told him to say it and had to think this is insane. In one sense, humanly, when here he ends up there just doing what he's told, putting a foot where he's told, opening his mouth and saying what he's told. And Moses is actually doing these things. And then he's going through the processes of it and then watching them materialize. And, you know, I think Moses, on one hand, you see this guy, he leads the children of Israel and they finally get out because of the plagues. They have the Passover. They go on down and here all of a sudden there they are at the Red Sea mountain range in the side. God put a hooks in a hook in Pharaoh's jaw, brings him down to come after them. And Moses is just, I'm sure, looking like everybody else when they're looking at Moses. You brought us out here to kill us. And yet Moses is looking there just like I'm sure his heart by beating and thinking, looks that way, doesn't it? You know, sort of a thing, I guess. So, you know, and waiting for the next word that might be contrary. Is there any other thing? Is this what it is? I haven't got any more things to say yet. I'm just here, you know, waiting for the next step. And yet here then God tells him, stretch forth your hand that rod over in here as he goes and he stretches it out and then it opens and they all walk through on dry land. Oh, maybe all the other people would look there and think, wow, he's somebody. But I think if you would have interviewed Moses at any point and as Moses, you know, and CNN, ABC, NBC, all of them there, Moses, that was really something. How'd you do it? He probably said, I am the faintest. I was as scared as the rest of you. He said, stretch it out. Okay. You know, my heart was beat like anybody else's. I was just told to do it though. I did it in here. God. Now he looks at Joshua and he says, Joshua, as it was with Moses, I'll be with you. It'll be no different. Only now you've got it in writing. Now you take, you know, and you've now got to put within your heart. The place that Moses once had now is to be replaced with my word, but the things that are written in it, where you truly believe it, you truly surrender to it. You will truly follow it and you will truly obey it, Joshua. That is what I expect of you, Joshua. And here, Joshua there. I mean, not only the old sufficiency has to die, there has got to become something that happens within God's servant, God's child. If he's ever going to get into the land that he has come into such a sense of the authority and the power and the conviction of God's word, that he looks at his word and realizes what it is and how magnificent it is, how wonderful it is, how powerfully is. And he has an absolute respect for it like nothing else in the world. It's set into an entire galaxy of its own, of authority and conviction and power and wonder. And here is the Lord says to me, he says, not only Joshua, you'll take my word and that you will meditate on it day and night. But he says also, Joshua, he says, may you make quite sure that you don't go to the right or the left. You don't stray from it. You stay right on line and in focus with it. And, you know, I think there's two great disasters that are through the years of ministry and through the decades. Now, as I look back, being around in ministry in the 60s and in the 70s, in the 80s, in the 90s, and now into the whatever, what did the 2000s or what? I don't know what you call these, whatever we're in after the 90s, whatever comes the hundreds or something. But at any rate, it's something in being around. I don't know how many people I've watched essentially the great disasters. You have people there that one sometimes had a vital love for the word, but somehow or another, they went to the right or to the left of it. And one of the things that's in so easily happen, I think sometimes the first one of the thing, you know, you can go to the right. You can just simply go to the right of the word. And that is what that that's the one you just simply subscribe to it. You believe it. You'll argue it. You'll defend it. You'll preach it in a sense. So it's true. And it's God's word. It's inerrant, inspired of the spirit. And you'll stand by it hook, line and sinker with your whole heart in a sense. But it's something there that you can very easily become very pharisaical about it. You can be very, in a sense, dogmatic about it. You can be very profound about it. But at the same time, you just simply believe it and believe it and make sure you have a congregation that believes it. You can lead an entire body of people into a pharisaical sense of snub this will destroy them. Many years ago, when I had first become a Christian, when I met Jean and fell in love with her, her father, he was although he was not in ministry, he had a great heart for ministry. He was a surgeon. He was a doctor. And he had four men. He was right. Love being around godly men. And he had four men that he met with weekly who were all seminary professors. One of them was Harold John Ockengate, president of Fuller Seminary at the time. Another fellow named Gleason Archer, another Harold Lenzel, another named Wilbur Smith. Billy Graham once said about Wilbur Smith, he'd never met a man in the world that knew the Bible like Wilbur Smith. He had 30 some odd thousand volumes, personal, largest personal of all library. And I believe Wilbur read them all. He wrote a lot of them do. But it's something that here, I'm just a brilliant man in the word. And my father-in-law so concerned when Jean brought me home and I'm a new Christian and he's thinking, we raised her for better things than this. He was just paralyzed. The fact that his dog, his daughter was falling in love with some sort of a mongrel, you know, sort of a thing and realize this guy doesn't know anything. He's, he's zealous for Christ maybe. And he's a new Christian, but he didn't grounded in what he's got. And he began to talk to me about the word. And what do I believe about the word? I'll never forget one time. And so he had, he sent me over to Wilbur and he no doubt, all these guys are so wonderful to me, but they took me and they talked to me. And so we'll run. I'd go meet with him on Saturday mornings. And he'd set up these things where he just kind of talk and ask me things, pray with me, share with me things. And he talked to me one time about liberals. And I thought all I knew is a liberal. That's, isn't that a Democrat? That's all. I honestly had no idea. No, I mean, and he started telling me there are people that don't believe the Bible. Christians. Yes. And they, they, they are, they, they don't believe it and wanted to know if I believe this, of course I believe it. I'm a Christian, you know, but I, I was so ignorant, so simple, but he used to talk to me about all sorts of things, neo-Orthodox things, all sorts of other things. Where do I stand with the word of God? And I was always so intimidated every time I get around him because he was so brilliant. And I'd come over and oftentimes during the week, I tried to think of a question I could ask him that would make him think this guy's a thinker. And, uh, I never did come up with one that I think fooled him, but at any rate, oftentimes I'd ask him questions and I think of them, what do I want to ask this guy? And so I remember one time I came over and I asked him a question. I don't even remember the question now, but I remember I asked him some smart question. I thought, and he looks at me for a moment. He says, come with me. We got out. He walked down the hall, go get in the elevator, go upstairs, go down a bunch of racks of love books, all his. And we walked down an aisle and he's a short man and he gets a little chair. There's a stepping thing, looks up there, pulls out a book, opens this thing at the book up to a certain page, goes around. And then he turns around, puts in front of me, says, there's your answer. I forgot the question by then, you know, they realized, I mean, what do you do with all these books? You know? And I realized he really read them, but one time I'll never forget. I'm in his house and I asked him, what did he believe the greatest enemy of the church was? And before I even got the question out, he says, there is no enemy of the church. The church has no enemies. The gates of hell can't prevail against it. There is nothing that can ever overpower the church. The church has, but one enemy itself and simply put his dead orthodoxy. The day that the church stops believing what it thinks it believes the day it stops carrying it out in its own life. The day that there's things that we subscribe to that we no longer follow and obey. That'll be the death of the church. The day that we lose it with, from within and within our own personal heart. And we just simply believe things, but don't live them. That's the enemy of the church. And I believe here is Joshua, God speaking to Joshua. He looked at him. He says, Joshua, don't ever wake up. And you straight off to the right. You got it. All right. You get all the answers. I remember this by not long after this, I came to Christ when I was a junior in college and I was actually Wilbur Smith literally sent a letter to Trinity evangelical divinity school in Deerfield, Illinois. I got in one envelope. I got a, uh, uh, uh, application to fill out and a letter of acceptance and the same thing. That was how influential he was. And they asked me if I'd please fill out the paperwork. I was already accepted, but they needed the detail. But a few weeks before I was to go, I'd read, met Alan Redpath sometime before, and he'd invited us to come to England. I realized I wanted to know the word more than I didn't even know how, what pneumatology and, you know, and all the different, I couldn't pronounce half of the words in the, you know, the catalog, you know, in the, for the, for seminary. But as I, as I looked there and realized I need this. So we went over, we spent a year there and then we came back and I felt I needed to do something. So, but all the time I'd, you know, always ask Alan what he thought of this school or that school. And while I was over there, I got a letter from a fellow named Charles Feinberg, who at the time was the Dean of Students at a place called Talbot. And once again, I got, I got invited to the school. I hadn't applied, asked me if I'd like to come, that I'd be accepted there. I didn't know what in the world was going on. I had never heard of the fellow. It wasn't until a long time later, I realized that my, my father-in-law, again, he was always trying to do everything he could to help this poor dog, you know, inbreed that now had his wife, his daughter, things. But at any rate here, my father-in-law was his surgeon and he had told him, he says, please help him. And, but don't wrench in me, you know, and stuff. And so I get, and so Charles Feinberg writes me this letter, invites me to the school. And I, and so I came back and decided, well, I need to do that. And after when, when we returned, but Charles, he really was a wonderful man. He took me under his wing in many ways. He just, I think because my father-in-law would never charge people in ministry. And, and so I was kind of the payment process, I suppose, a little bit or something to take the, take the kid and show the doctor thanks or something. But at any rate, he was, he was quite wonderful to me, but it was something there that while I was in seminary and I'm going through this, I'd oftentimes, I mean, everything was just doctrine, doctrine, doctrine. In fact, as I went through the catalog. In fact, if you do, you can do this yourself. If you want to go get the catalogs of Dallas seminary, Trinity, Western Baptist, Denver, virtually all the major seminaries in the country today. If you look at them, they'll all, all your, your required courses are pretty much the same. They all require Genesis. And the reason they do that is they want to make sure that you have their view on creation. They'll all require Ezekiel and Daniel and Thessalonians and revelations. So you make, they make sure you have their eschatology. You will have the book of acts as required. So you have their pneumatology. You'll have all of their various doctrinal courses because then when you get the courses, they're all doctrinal. And here I'd been in Bible school for a year, five hours a day, the Bible. And it's just this thrilling, powerful, wonderful book. When I was in England, I'd come back and it's all doctrine. I wanted to make sure that I understand all their views on all of these, you know, aspects of doctrine. And these drive me crazy. One time I'm walking down the hall and Feinberg would always have me in his office. Always wonderful to me. But how are you a young man? You bring me in, how are things going? And I'd come in, I said, I don't understand. I was frustrated. I remember one time I asked, what's dispensationalism? I've been a Christian while I was meant to Bible college in England for a year and never hardly heard the word. And now it's all over the place here. I didn't realize that was his baby. He loved dispensationalism like nothing in the world. That was wonderful to him. That was the key to the Bible. And, but I asked him the wrong question because I looked at him. He said, what? And I said, Dr. Feinberg, what is dispensationalism? What's so important about it? Well, he looked at me. I'll never forget. I just watched his face just turn right before my eyes, his blood red as everything just started pulsing and he little fella, but he reams up on his desk and he almost came right over the top of his desk, right into his face, right up to mine as they sit across from me. And he says, young man, yes, I've got one question for you. Yes, sir. What's the question? How long has it been since you sacrificed a lamb for your sins? And here he is right in my face. He, why? And I, I said, that's been a long time. That's dispensationalism. That's why, you know, you're in another dispensation. And I said, well, I guess so. Now I understand, you know, or something made it quite clear to me, you know, or something. I don't know. I've been only that one alone. And I remember another time I'm walking down the hall, you know, when it is troubled with all this whole presentation of the Bible, it's all doctrinal seemed. And I'm walking down the hall. He walks right out just right next to me as we're going to chapel. And he goes, young man, he was always quite wonderful in that way. Started off good anyway, but he, how are you today? He said, how are you today? And I said, you know, Dr. Feinberg, I don't know. He says, why, what's wrong? I said, you know, one day I became Christian. That was the most wonderful day of my life. Okay. I still believe. I remember how wonderful that was. And I said, but then as I began to grow, I realized the need to become a conservative Christian because I found out there's liberals out there. So I became a conservative. And then I found out even among the conservatives that when you had to be more than that, you had to be a fundamental Christian. So I became a conservative, fundamental Christian. And then the need though, to share your faith with people. And so I became a conservative, fundamental evangelical Christian. And I said, now you're, I'm a seminary and I'm a conservative, fundamental evangelical pre-millennial dispensational Calvinist. And I think I'm a Christian, but I'm not as sure as I was at the beginning. We did have a lot of wonderful times in between those together, but it was very easy. Some are another for me to be Frank. And I almost enjoyed watching his face when these things would happen, but there's a terrible danger that can happen when I find myself one day believing everything subscribing to all of it, making sure I want everybody to know and understand because I'm convicted, convicted. It's true. And convinced it's true. Passionate is true, but it's just, but you can easily be right and be wrong. And here is the Lord speaks to Joshua. He says, don't you turn off to the right. Also don't turn off to the left. You can go off to the left. And that's something that anybody, if any of us that have been around since the sixties in this, in a wonderful outpouring of the spirit that happened, not just the Jesus movement, the West coast, it happened virtually anywhere in the country that people really fervently preaching the gospel and making a difference, whether you're Presbyterian and assembly of God, Baptist president, you know, whoever, anybody that took the name of Christ in the sixties and preached it all, God blessed it. Churches exploded. And, uh, and here is all this happening, but you watch the things that have gone on ever since. And not only God poured out his spirit, I believe that the enemy is all support out all sorts of stuff off to the left. Now, a lot, not to the right to where you're rightly dividing the word of God, maybe, but off to the left where you're just messing with it. You're toying with it and tinkering with it. We began hearing things like it back in the late sixties, early seventies of shepherding. Maybe some of you around, maybe some of you were even in God had his will always given to the shepherd and the shepherd. And then you had it over the elders and the elders had it over and on down to the little teeny and newest sheep. But you all had, you found out God's will for your life by going to your, your shepherd over you, whoever it was shepherding doctrine. But then also a long time when that, when that, you know, we're trying to deal with that as a, just some off to the left sort of a thing, weird sort of a thing, but it, it take its toll and take a bunch of people into it. Then there was the manifested sons of God, theology, children of God. For if you're around for some of those things on how it times like this, you know, people say, well, the Lord's coming and he's coming soon and Jesus is about to appear, but he can't come until his bride is perfected herself. She's dirty now and she, and she's got to get herself together. We got to be the perfected sons of the living God. And so we had to clean ourself up and everybody had to get perfect. And as soon as the church was perfect, Jesus was going to come for his bride. He can't come for a dirty bride. And I mean, essentially that's what it was. And thousands of people got into it. And then when people couldn't get their life together, another doctrine that just kind of fit right into this was Christians being demon possessed. Because now when you couldn't get your life together and you, you know, man, you, I mean, then next, you know, here, you've got demons. You can't, you got the demon in nicotine. You got the demon of alcohol. You've got the demon of marijuana, or you've got the demon of lust, or you've got the chocolate demon or whatever. My wife actually wanted that one cast into her, but the, but something to where if there was a problem in your life at all, there was some demonic thing that kept you from being perfected there as God wanted you. And you need to have a cast out. And again, with the, the, how this whittled away and wounded and attacked the body Christ, it took its toll off to another thing off to the left. And then the, you know, power, but the positive confession, God wants you rich and he wants you healthy. And he has given you authority to speak his word. And if you will speak his word and that you will, you know, and confess his word and speak it out of your health, even though you're not healthy, you speak health and it'll take power over the, you know, the world around you and the unhealthy world and the poor world around you and the problems. And you'll be rich and you'll be healthy and you'll be blessed. And they'd always find a few verses that you put all their theology together, but it's always off to the left, always off into some sort of a weird thing that came. And then with the, you know, the, the, the power ministry, you know, kind of a thing that came on and the Merlin, the miracles, you know, sort of a thing and some other, you know, things that just seem to come and could grasp people. One of my personal greatest heartaches is there's a man who spent a year with money with me and John Wimber. I banged him. I don't tell that too much. I mean, I love John and I loved him to the end, but he could never get in the word. You always had trials over all of these other things and, you know, and, and these longing, you know, to have some thing out there, something he was trying to always fabricate and put together. I said, John, you don't need it. You got the word. But on how, you know, there is, he kind of found a new little niche and a new little thing that he called it the third wave, a fresh outpouring of God's spirit. I'd never before. It's the last and final one. He was going to head it up in the healing ministry and all these things. There's a, what's John and his son both wither away, die in cancer, you know, and the whole process, but how these things come and then they go, they're here and then they're gone, but they always have some sort of a devastating way of having an effect that they do upon the church and upon the body of Christ as, as they go. And now, you know, one of the latest now is the emergent church. It's just another thing to the left, another thing, just off to just another fantasy. Somebody's trying to put it together as if there isn't enough, you know, but yeah, but dynamic of just the word itself. What's more? What has ever been more thrilling than this? More magnificent. But you see, when I get tired of the of the obedience and the surrender and the following next thing I know, most people either go off to the right or they go off to the left, dead orthodoxy. Or else they go off into weirdness, but either one mobilizes, immobilizes their soul. Either one of them will keep him out of the land, keep him out of blessing, keep him out of where it is. But when somebody discovers that what they really want with above all else is the word of God and here God tells Joshua, he says, everything that Moses ever was to you. Now my word is. Here it is, Joshua, and you take it and every place that the soul of your foot shall tread upon, I will give you. It will require you as it did Moses. He had to go and open his mouth, put his soul, the soul of his foot into Pharaoh's house and open his mouth and say things that as they came out of his mouth, the most awesome things of human being could actually hear with his ears as they're saying. But where you believe it. That's what Moses, if you can imagine Moses's struggles of having been so more often, you know, all the time he had to say things before his own eyes had ever seen them. But wherefore he, he didn't get to experience in them before the children of Israel did like, I'll tell you what God, how about, you know, I'm going to say something and just have a few frogs run. I mean, just give me a little frog run, you know, just a little bit. So I got a little confidence when I go before Pharaoh and I say frogs are coming, buddy, that I can say, and I've seen them, you know, already they're on their way, you know, or something or lice are coming or there's a plague coming, but no, he had this. God looked at him and he said, no, you go and you'll say it and believe it. Because I said it to you and that's all you need. That's why you'll get into the land because the land isn't geographical. Moses, the land is spiritual. It's a place where somebody comes with an absolute conviction that God has got in heaven above and earth below and whatever he says is all I need. And therefore I will risk my life on it. That's what Moses did. Every time he opened his mouth, he put his foot out and God gave it to him. I'm sure you've all heard the story, the Baptist minister and the Catholic priest and the Jewish rabbi, these friends on Mondays, they'd go out fishing together. And, uh, you know, one Monday there, they get out there and they're in the boat, but after they'd been there, you know, sitting there a little while Jewish rabbi looks over and he says, you know, something, I can't believe it. I bought some bait and then I left it sitting right in there in the bait shop. I got to go get my bait. And with that, he just stands up and he steps right out of the boat and he walks on the water to the bait shop. And here this Baptist preacher, when he sees this, I mean, obviously his heart was about to blow out of his chest. He can't believe it, but he looks over while this is happening, this traumatic, unbelievable experience. He looks at the Catholic priest. He doesn't even look up, doesn't pay attention, just looks over and go back baiting his hook. With that, then a few minutes later, you know, the Jewish rabbi comes walking back out, got a little bait thing, little bait box there with him and sits down in the boat. And this guy's just sitting there. Wait, that's a Jewish rabbi. Hi, this is sick. He's not, he's the guy's a heretic. He hasn't learned a thing in 2000 years. What is going on here? That God, how did you let this happen? And then a few minutes later, the Catholic priest, he looks there and he says, you know, I'm hungry. I saw there in that little cafe in there, in the snack shop there, they'd had the best looking turkey sandwich I think I've seen. He said, I think I want one. With that, he steps up, walks out, walks in the water, just walks right in the water, into shore, gone for a few minutes, comes back with a little sack, sits down. He's got this great, big, beautiful turkey sandwich. Meantime, I mean, this Baptist minister, it's just theologically going through turmoil. Everything's hard in his life. He cannot believe what the world's going on. And he said to that, I'm not going to be outdone by these guys. No way. I mean, God, if you would do that for them, you will certainly do that for me. And so he finds himself there just praying and up a storm and just knowing God, your God, never above your Lord of Lords. You're the King of Kings. I know you guys died for me. My name's in the Lamb's will go white. And these. Heretics, you know, or whatever are not going to win out this one. And he gets the faith and finally just turns. He says, you know, that does look like a good looking turkey sandwich. I think I'm going to get one for myself. And he steps up and with all the faith in the world, he steps right out. And sinks right now, just like that. And there is he comes back up and after the bubbles and he looks at those guys are going on baiting their thing and climbs back in the most, most humiliated man you ever saw in the world sits there for a moment. Neither one of them say anything. Nobody does. And now he just, I got nothing to lose now. I'm nothing. And he looks there and he says, I'm getting that turkey sandwich. Yes, sir. God bless you, man. I'll be right back. And he takes another step out. Down he goes. They end up pulling him back in. He sits down there with just dripping, just wondering, I mean, his world crushed. With that, the Jewish rabbi looks over the Catholic priest and he says, do you suppose we ought to tell him where the stumps are? Well, you know, the word of God is where the stumps are. And, you know, and when somebody there knows the word of God, if they will put their foot where the word of God says they will walk on water, they will do miraculous things. If with a conviction, they will step out of the boat onto the word. And if they step out of the boat on presumption, if they step out of the boat on any other thing, they will go down. But when they step out on the word of God, now you've got the most awesome combination that God loves to see a man now believing his word. And when you can get two of those two combinations together, you've got Canaan. You've got victory. That's the key to houses you didn't build, wells you didn't dig, vineyards you didn't plant, olive oils you didn't plant, fields white unto harvest, cupboards you didn't fill. Here it's something there when somebody begins to realize, as I would step out and put my trust in God and realize that. As we know, and we preach so often, the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, able to divide in the son of the soul and spirit, joint marrow, thoughts in the heart. Do I believe it's true? Do I believe it says here is a miraculous life, an overcoming life, a life beyond all the sciences of the world in terms of its hope or its peace or its joy, its strength, its victory. And when somebody knows that, like when David, you know, turns, he says, oh, how happy blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits at the feet of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law, he meditates day and night. He's there. He just looks and he realizes who cares what the world thinks and the ungodly thing. And all the counselors out there in the world think I've got the word of God and he meditates in a day and night. And here is David looks at this and knows this, he says, you'll be like a tree planted by rivers of water. His leaf also shall not wither and wither and whatsoever he doeth will prosper. David looked back there and he was a man that he realized something through the years. He realized, you know, when somebody there looks at the word of God and God says something in his word and that man is willing to meditate on it and then do something about what he read, do it. Whatsoever he doeth will prosper. One of the only major differences between David and the whole rest of the nation is a time when it was filled with cowards. David is a man there. He looked there and he believed the word of God. And when he sent out with a bunch of cheeses one day to go check on his brothers and see how the war is coming, he looks over and though to everybody else's eyes, a giant of a man steps out and mocks the children of God. Am I not a Philistine? Is this not your land? Choose out a man and send him out. If he can defeat me, will your service. But if I defeat him, you'll be ours. David looks at this. There, I mean, just realizing blessed is a man that walketh not on the counsel of the ungodly, stands in the way of sinners, sits in the feast corner, his delights in the law of the Lord. He loves the law. And David sits there and looks at it. He says, do you realize what that guy just said? Do you realize that guy just sat there and mocked the living God? He just made an absolute mockery of that. What do you say? He is the enemy. He is on our territory. It is ours. How do you know that God's word said it? And then David not only meditated and knew it, he acted upon it. He looks and he's not taking it. I'm not afraid of this uncircumcised Philistine. There is David. Look, he says, who is this uncircumcised Philistine? As he looks there, the certain marker of circumcision, the mark of consecration. Who is this man entirely unconsecrated to God? Knows nothing of the power and the glory and the strength and the magnificence of God at all in a Philistine, an uncircumcised Philistine. Who does he think he is to divide the armies of the living God? David finds himself, I'll do this and nothing. What's going on here? What's happened is he's perhaps looking around at everybody else sitting around there and off to the right or off to the left. And David just walks in and he says, this is crazy. This is insane. Do you hear what I hear? What's going on? Are you on a different planet? What's that guy doing? And here, you know, and here's Saul. Everybody is cowards. Finally, David gets brought before him and he looks at him. He says, oh, I just say, oh, son, I didn't realize the volunteer was a, you know, you're but a youth. This man's been a warrior since he said, I don't care. God's been with me all the days of my life. I took on the lion, took on the bear, this uncircumcised Philistine would be nothing. And he looks at him and he sees a man who's in Canaan. He sees a man there who's walking in power and walking in victory. He's walking in another world and all he can but do is just say, go get him. And not only did he go get him, he was so anxious. First, he puts on his armor and he can't do it. He said he probably couldn't walk around there, probably try to move. He said, hey, sorry, would you lift my leg? I can't move it, you know, or whatever. I just got to do it my own way. And he goes out there with just that little sling. And first, he didn't even know I, you know, he only knew is this is terrible. He goes down, he collects five smooth stones from where the river breath and most river breads are at the bottom of the valley. A lot of them don't run at the top where everybody's hiding, which means David didn't even have any ammunition till he got all the way down. He was fully committed. Fully committed. And he gets down there into the valley where the creek is. And there he picks up the stones. We're finding, oh, yeah, I might need something to kill this guy with for God. But then this is this guy looks at him. He says, what am I that you come to me with a like a dog and sticks? Am I a dog? You crazy. You send a little kid out here. And he looks at him. He says, I'm going to feed you the foul of the air, which is basically that was just old. Whatever Philistine language or world language for your birdseed, your chicken feed, your I'm just I'm feeding you to the birds. That's all you are. They said birdseed out to me. Well, you chicken feed. I'm a warrior. I don't want to fight you. And David looked at him. He said, you know, you come to me with all your stuff. I come to you in the name of the Lord, whom you have defied this day. Goliath, of all the days you ever got up, this one shouldn't have been it. This had nothing to do with you and me. This has to do with God and his promise and his word. And you've defied it and you've mocked it. Do you realize what you've done? You know that we would have such a holy attitude towards the word of God within our own hearts and such a respect for it that we could look and realize the magnificence and the glory and the power of it and hold it so high that we'd realize what weapon could ever destroy it, what has ever been formed against it that can do anything about it at all. And when somebody realizes its magnificence here, David, though, or here, you know, Joshua, he had to learn this where God looks at him. He said, Joshua, the old sufficiency has to die. The word of God has got to become something to you that is the most powerful thing in the world. Most exciting thing in the world. But he says it's also something he tells him, you know, a couple of times here, he says, you will observe to do it, Joshua. That's what he tells him. Verse six, be strong and of good courage. You'll divide. You'll do it. I will use you to divide their the inheritance, which had sworn to their fathers only be strong and of good courage that you may observe to do according to all the law, which Moses, my servant. Joshua, I'm telling you, not just you believe it and you just preach it, but you will do it. You will do whatever it says. And then in verse eight, the book of the law should not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in a day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written for them. Then under those terms, you will make your way prosperous and then you have great success. That you look there and with all your heart, you are going to do the word of God. You're going to put one foot in front of another. You're going to begin to step out. And if you want that land. And you want to lead them into that land. Then this is what you will do. And the day you can't do it is the day we'll find somebody else, just as I found somebody else in Moses's place, I suppose. But here it's one, you know, I think on one hand, when we can look at how many areas of our life, how many of us stand on one side of Jordan in one sense, look over to the other and dream of it. Land flowing with milk and honey. Wells, we didn't dig all of years, we didn't plant cities, we didn't build fields right into harvest houses, we didn't build. Oh, and yet at the same time, also in that land is an untamed enemy. In our own lives, how many of us have areas of peaceful coexistence that we live in fear? That we like the children of Israel look there, you know, and have a battle raging back and forth. And the fear that goes on as we look at this of really, truly stepping out and trusting and believing the word. This is the struggle. Everyone that has ever come in, everyone, everyone that's ever come into Canaan, they all have fear. Moses had fear. Joshua had fear. David had his fears. You read his songs, Elijah, his fears, everyone that ever, you know, that it is the most common enemy of all the fear, you know, in a sense of the enemy, the fear of being able to step out. And they're looking at the battles that we've been so defeated by over and over and over again of saying never again. How many of us live in areas in our own homes or marriages in our thought life? We enemies got it. And there's a superficial hypocrisy where we fail to God says you can preach all you want to, but until you will put your foot in the you want a victorious marriage, you can preach about all you want, but the whole congregation knows what you have. It knows what side of Jordan you're always preaching from. They know whether they're listening to a pastor who's preaching from the wilderness or whether he's listening, they're listening to somebody that lives in Canaan and loves it. They know whether they're talking, they're listening to somebody that truly eats the grapes of the kingdom and drinks from its wells and eats of its harvest and rests in its strength or whether they're looking at somebody as desperate as they are dreaming about what they don't have. And the difference is, is that one of them has stepped out and put his foot out. And he said, God, it, I'm afraid, I'm scared. Of course we are. Of course we are. The only difference to me between Joshua and anybody else around Joshua had the fears. Oh, he had the fears. The only difference is, is Joshua feared God more than he feared man. He feared failure more than, you know, than, than anything. He feared not pleasing God, though he had all the other fears. And obviously Adam, look at what God says to him. Verse nine, have I not commanded thee only be strong, be of good courage, be not afraid, neither be dismayed over and over. You know, I'm commanding you. He says, be strong, be of good courage. Don't be afraid. Don't be dismayed four times. Who do you, what kind of a person you say this stuff to? Somebody that has no fears. Could you imagine if tonight you walked into some big arena and there's some big yelling and shouting going on in the thing. And if you walk into the place you want, and as you come in, there's an arena packed with thousands of people and down in the middle of it, there's a boxing ring and you look there and walk in. And just as you kind of come in, you know, a microphone comes down to follow with a tuxedo steps up into the middle. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the heavyweight championship of the world. You know, or whatever the whole place is. And, you know, an uncontested heavyweight champion of all time or whatever. And last guy remembers Muhammad Ali. I'm a little rusty on my heavyweight. Evander Holyfield or whatever. And over here, Evander Holyfield, undefeated, unanimous king of boxing world, you know, 3000 KOs, 1000 killed in the first 15 seconds. And there's this rippling mass of muscles sitting over there in the corner, just waiting there to get up. And then you walk in and you look over here in the other corner and there I am. Why are you laughing? Over here in the other corner, the only contender that even was stupid enough to climb into the ring at 59 years old, blind in one eye, one lung gone in a recent hip replacement here. Which guy would you go to and say, only be strong, good courage. Don't be dismayed. Be not afraid. Would you go to Evander and say, he'd look at you and say, flick you off and knock you down. This is what you bother in me. No, you come over to me. Only be strong. You idiot. And a good courage. Listen here in a few seconds, you're going to hear a bell. And then in about five more seconds, you'll hear harps and angels will be singing to you. You'll be home. It'd be quite wonderful. You look at me, but here, Joshua, God's looking at Joshua. Of course you're afraid, Joshua. But you know, you only got one run around in life. You only have one go through. And the tragic thing is the average human being, the average overwhelming percentage of human beings never know courage. They live in the twilight of spiritual power their entire life, never, ever knowing Canaan. And, you know, we're the weirdest people because we preach week after week, fearlessly. Christ died for me. My name's in the Lamb's Book of Life. Live as Christ, die as gain, absent from the body, present with the Lord. And we're rock solid on it, totally convinced of it. We'll argue it to the death and even some of us willingly, happily give our life for it. But, you know, I mean, we literally say, that's OK, I don't mind dying and dying at the end of it. You just take me thrown in a box, bury me, throw me down six feet deep. Hallelujah. And we're absolutely peace about it. I mean, that's you know, that's the most awesome thing. We believe the most awesome, unbelievable thing in the world. And yet the average Christian, when you also look at it and say, by the way, that's kind of a great trust in God. Wouldn't you like to kind of test him out a little bit before the ultimate box comes? You know, well, you're kind of thrown in the thing for the to find out for sure. If it's really true. And the average Christian never really knows if it's true. Because they live their life in the wilderness. And I believe the whole world is simply looking for somebody in Canaan that goes in. That's the you know, we're oftentimes again, like Chuck mentioned today, people are looking for programs are looking for this or looking for that. They're looking for somebody with a series of messages, 10 basic steps to this, you know, some way to victory. Here's the whole way that you preach this, you do this, you learn this. The world is going to open up to your feet. Let me tell you, there's never been anything in all the world like a man or a woman that stands on the shores on the other side of Jordan and opens his mouth and preaches. And until that happens, everybody's running around in the wilderness looking for these silly things. Instead of finding their God, take my life and bring me into power and bring me into blessing and bring me into victory. I want to know how real you are. And I want to know now. And, you know, when we find ourself there, just looking and crying out in a sense to God for that. That's when I believe the ultimate blessings really come when we finally experience it. And when we know that. One of the things that I think is just funny about me, I don't know, I guess, I don't, it wouldn't seem funny, but it seems so weird to everybody else, I guess. Well, it must be weird. But back after I'd been at Calvary and Costa Mesa for a few years, and I just wanted to leave. I didn't know where I wanted to go, but I wanted to do a school or this or that. And here I was, assistant at Costa Mesa, did Sunday services when Chuck is gone, did all sorts of radio, TV, magazine interviews. And here I come to Chuck said, Chuck, I got to go. I want to go do school. OK, why? I don't know. I just got to. And then when we got to school up and going, the Bible college in Calvary of Lake Arrowhead, as I looked around, there was people, you want to run the school? You like it? You think you can do it? Yeah. You want the church? Yeah. Why? I got to go where? I don't know yet. I just know I got to go. Well, what do you mean you don't have a plate? No. I ended up waiting on the Lord, I just knew he's just saying go. And next thing you know, I feel like the Lord has me going down to Redlands. So I went down the hill to Redlands, but I went down there. I everything was closed and done and gone before I even went down and held a Bible study. I didn't know if anybody come and anything happened. And I was scared again all the time. It's funny. I mean, each time people ask you, what do you what are you going to do? Are people going to come? I don't know. Are you in sports? I don't know. Find a job. I don't know. I just got to go to what God wants. And then when Redlands is up and going, thousands of people, I should tell the board I got to go. What do you mean you got to go? I just got to go where you go. I don't know. God's just speaking to my heart. And then one day I'm up, you know, flying someplace with Chuck on the thing and told him I said, Chuck, I got to go. He says, well, we're on a plane, you can't go right now. No, but. But it's and and he looks at me, he says, you are an adventure. But to me, the thrill of it. Thrill of it. And he told me, he said, well, there's a church in San Jose, and you've heard that story, maybe. We went off expecting there maybe be a few months before we had support or could have things. It was three years. But yet watching God provide, watching him miraculously do the most unbelievable things to where our kids need dental bills and we're having to go to the dentist, there's a bill come. We didn't have a penny. And yet watching God provide do these most unbelievable ways that he would bring things through. And the thrill of it all. The thrill of, you know, to me, we spend our life preaching and just so often wondering, what do you suppose it was like for Abraham or Moses to stand there at the Red Sea and stretch out that rod? We preach it to everybody. But I'll tell you, far more wonderful than preaching is feeling it. Standing there, what was like for Jeffrey Elijah to stand there before 450 prophets of Baal and say, if the Lord be God, follow him. And if they'll be God, follow him. You wonder what it's like. You just think of these people that said and did these unbelievable things. What was like for David to look at Goliath and run at him? I don't want to preach about it. I want to know. And the thrill of it is that watching God do the most miraculous and wonderful things when you just put one foot out in front of another with absolute conviction, it's true. And if it isn't true, like Paul says, we're of all men, most miserable. But therefore, because it is true, the world ought to be looking at us and not just simply our cleverness or our awareness of the world around us and how contemporary we are or with the flow of people or the magic we seem to know about something. They look at somebody and they live in Canaan and they come before the people week by week and open the word of God and they tell them how to get there if they want to go. And the people believe them, not because they're cute, because it's true. And in their heart, the spirit of God bears witness with it. It says it's true. Amen. Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for your love. Thank you, Lord, for your goodness to us. Thank you, Lord, the price you paid to adopt us, to write our name down in your book of life, to promise, Lord, to come for us, to conform us into your image and in between now and then to live every day presenting this faultless interceding for us. And Lord, I just pray that in the process, something would break our hearts where we would look at you and no other and say, with a God like that, is there anything you want me to do or say? Is there someplace you want me to put my foot? One step at a time. Lord, I just pray for the marriages here. I pray for the homes. I pray for the area that each one of us, Lord, the fears that we all have and there's no man that's ever entered into Canaan that doesn't. No woman. But Lord, that when we fear you more than anything, when we fear disappointing you, when we fear the thought of one day looking back at our life and saying it was wasted. Oh, that I had tried his word once. Oh, that I had stepped out. Lord, may we know the thrill. May the secret of what we are as individuals, as a people, as a congregation, where we want to lead them, Jesus, may we be ones that say, Jesus, bring them into the land. But you must bring me first or they'll know. I've never ate a grape. I've never drank from its wells. I've never eaten from its tables. Known it's all of yours. Lord, first feed me and help me with my own fears. Each and every one of us, Lord. May you do this as you take away every other dependence, all other sufficiencies. May they die in our life to where we find ourself standing naked before you and say, what do you say to me? I will do it. Oh, the fear, but oh, the joy in our spirit when we realize that's how you work. Teach us and help us and strengthen us in these days. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.