Spiritual Progress: a fresh start

I'm pleased to be with you at your conference today. Our brother has spoken a word on what am I. I'm going to speak a word on where am I. I want to speak a word to you on spiritual progress. I may even give it a subtitle and call it A Fresh Start.

Will you read, please, in the book of Joshua, Joshua chapter 3 and verse 1. And Joshua rose early in the morning, and they removed from Shittim and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and Lodz there, before they passed over. And it came to pass that after three days the officers went through the hosts, and they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it. That will be my text, go after it.

Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go. For ye have not passed this way.

That is not the object of the verb past. In the grammar, this way is an adverbial modifier, and a more correct translation would be, For ye have not passed in this manner. Ye have not passed in this manner heretofore.

Now, there will be three lessons I am going to suggest, so would you look at verse 17? The priests that bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan. And all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan. I shall be calling that the lesson of the ark.

Come please to chapter 5, and verse 8. Came to pass when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp till they were whole. And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day have I ruled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.

I am going to refer to that as the lesson of the night. Chapter 6, and verse 20. So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets.

And it came to pass when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout that the wall fell down flat. So as the people went up into the city, every man stood before him, and they took the city. I am going to refer to that as the lesson of the shout.

Turn please to the New Testament for three quick references. Galatians chapter 2, verse 20. I am crucified with Christ.

That's the lesson of the ark. Chapter 5, verse 24. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

That's the lesson of the night. Chapter 6, verse 14. But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

There's the lesson of the shout, and the walls come down. God will bless to us his sacred word. Further progress was impossible.

Before the feet of Israel, a flood. Jordan banks were overflowed, a flood impassable. Behind Jordan and the flood there stood a fortress impregnable, Jericho.

And behind Jericho there's a foal, implacable. You can't make terms with that foal. Those are the Canaanites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, the Gergesites, that list that as children we loved.

So you can see the people of God were at a standstill. Where do we go from here? Behind them was not a very good record. Thirty-eight years of illegitimate wilderness experience.

God never meant them to have that thirty-eight years. That was simply because of unbelief. In those thirty-eight years they were going nowhere, aimless.

They were growing nothing, fruitless. They were simply fighting amongst themselves, they were useless. Had the promises of God failed, had the purposes of God failed, certainly the people of God had failed.

But they stand now, and just on the other side of the Jordan there's a possession. That God had promised them, with produce that summarized in the word milk and honey, with a peace to be enjoyed. But how to get there? It seemed impossible.

I submit in the picture, God's picture book, it's an illustration of where in our spiritual experience we are brought. And I'm not only speaking to young believers, I'm speaking to all believers. And I'm going to suggest to your heart that there will be three lessons.

If any one of us are going to make spiritual progress and enter into the possession for which God has saved us, that we might have this spiritual peace and the rest of which our brother has spoken, there's lessons for us as we stand with Israel and gaze at that impassable flag, that impregnable fortress, and behind them the implacable foe. And those lessons, there'll be three. The lesson of the ark.

I don't go into detail, time forbid, but you watch the priest, please, take that ark. You haven't traveled in this way, in this manner heretofore. The cloud had been through the wilderness and the pillar of fire, but now that's gone.

There's new steps to be taken, and how are they going to take them? They get their eye on the ark. And watch those priests come to the edge of Jordan and dip their feet in Jordan. And Israel is standing behind.

You can almost feel the stillness as the waters open, stead at Adam. And the waters open, and you can see Israel passing through. What are they learning? They had to stand where the ark stood.

They had to pass where the ark passed, and that was the only way into Canaan. You say, what does Jordan speak of? Jordan speaks of the penalty of sin, speaks of death. You say, but they had learned of death.

Yes, they had. They had learned of death when the lamb was slain under the knife, forty years before. They had seen what sin brought, but that resulted in shelter.

But then they had stood at the Red Sea. Death again, yes. This was not shelter, this was salvation.

This was the power of Egypt broken. This was the people of God set free through death. But that was forty years before.

Now they stand, not looking back to Egypt, but looking back to the wilderness. Are we going to stay in the wilderness? The way out of Egypt was the Red Sea. The way into Canaan is the Jordan.

But the lesson is the same. It's death. And interpreted in New Testament terms, it's the death of Christ.

To bring in the people into the possession. You and I have stood, have we not, in Romans 5? Christ died for me. If you haven't stood there, you're not saved.

Christ died for me, that's the blood. But Romans 6 is, I died with Christ, knowing this, that the old man, not the flesh or the old nature, that's the man I was, up to the point of conversion. Knowing this, that the old man was crucified with him, that's my death with him.

And Egypt's power is broken, and I'm free. But you say now, of the Jordan, this is not Romans 6, this is Romans 12. This is not its reality in that sense, it's its realization.

A fresh understanding, a fresh grasp. I stand in Romans 12, and I recognize, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice wholly acceptable, which is your spiritual worship, and I stand at a cross. You Testament parents, I am crucified with Christ.

Did you see the eye? Did you young believers understand, I am crucified? I have been, it's a perfect part of the book, been crucified with Christ. Do you understand that? Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. The life that I now live, I live by the faith, believing in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Here is the penalty of sin, falling on the person of the Savior, with the result that there is a new pathway open, and a new passion imbued within my heart. I am standing with the ark, I am standing with the ark in Jordan, and I am learning that the death sentence falls on Christ and on me. Have I learned it? There is no progress, there is no place for a competition between Christ and I. It's him alone.

Maybe it takes me years to learn. Big conference in Belfast, Leicester, just after I was saved, a young man sitting at the back of a gallery, far distant from the speaker, in the company of over 3,000 people. One man rose to the rostrum that day, and he spoke for only ten minutes, but in those ten minutes a life was changed, one that I know of.

That speaker quoted the foxes of home, the birds of the air have their nests, but the shallow man hath not where to lay his head. You could have heard a pin drop in that audience. Then he quoted a verse of a hymn.

The hymn is in our hymn book, but not this verse. It's a verse of when I survey the wondrous cross, the last verse of which is, His dying crimson outer robe spreads o'er his body on the tree, And I am dead to all the globe, and all the globe is dead to me. Brother, sister, do you expect spiritual progress? Spiritual progress? Spiritual peace? You stand with the Ark, and you see the eye cancel, and the person of the Savior takes that place.

Christ liveth in thee. Does he? It's the lesson of the Ark. They're over at Jordan, and they come to Gilgal.

Before they deal with the Canaanites, there's another foe that must be dealt with first, and it's just as implacable. If Satan stands behind the Jordan, this is the flesh. And they have to feel a knife in circumcision, that knife that had been neglected.

As far as I understand it, Israel just kept two passovers, one before they crossed the Red Sea and one after they crossed the Jordan. But before they could keep the passover, there had to be the knife. There had to be a mark put upon them that would stay upon their bodies throughout the subsequent campaign.

They had to feel that cut. You know what it is, circumcision. Now, circumcision, of course, was but a symbol of the covenant into which they had been brought.

Don't equate it with baptism, please, except in the sense that circumcision anticipated the cross, baptism looks back to the cross, but stay with that. Here is the truth that is said before us in Colossians 2 and verse 11. That circumcision that cuts off is called the circumcision of Christ.

What's that? That's nothing less than his cross, where Jesus died. Here is where I learn that all that pertains to the flesh and that belongs to the flesh and that comes from the flesh cannot be used in the things of God. And it's only a trap, it's only a trick that will tangle me.

Unless I learn, when I am going to make spiritual progress, I learn the lesson of the knife. What's that? That's not me on Calvary. That's my flesh.

That's not what God does. God does it penally. This is modeling.

This is Galatians 5.24. They that are Christ's, are you one of those? Crucified? It's actually a narrowest tense, but it's probably quite rightly translated as a perfect. It can happen, and I think it's right here. It speaks back of what Calvary unfolds, but it brings it down to the present.

The result of the past, it's in the present. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. When did that happen? Conversion, of course.

But that conversion in the past has now control in the present. And I'm not taking those old pathways. I'm not taking those old pastimes.

I'm not occupied with the games of this world. I'm not occupied with the pleasures and entertainment of this world, its pastimes, its pleasures. I stand at a cross.

As Israel felt the bite of the knife, it was no easy experience. But it was absolutely essential that they learned that nothing from the flesh could thus bring them into the possession that God had opened to them. To enjoy the produce and the peace of Canaan, they couldn't do it until they felt and knew the truth of the knife.

Do we understand it, fellow believers? This is not the person of the Savior. This is a part of the Spirit coming in. Because Galatians 5 speaks of your liberty.

Make it not an occasion of military base, but for attack upon you an occasion of the flesh. In other words, you've got to deal with the flesh. Why is that? That you might be led of the Spirit, that you might walk in the Spirit, that you might have the fruit of the Spirit, that you might have the power of the Spirit of God.

Do I know something of it? Do I recognize something of it? Led of the Spirit has nothing to do with meetings. It's the steps along the pathway that the believer takes. And the fruit of the Spirit is the produce of that which could only come in a Canaan experience.

And my own conviction is that there's only one fruit of the Spirit, not nine. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Put a dash after that.

It's unfolded in the end. Unfolding. Love.

And then the pathway, walk in the Spirit. But I have stood under the knife, crucified with Christ. We're taking steps.

We've come past the Jordan, lesson of the ark. We have stood at Gilgal, rolling, the rolling away of their approach of Egypt. I submit to you their approach of Egypt was that which arising out of worldly thinking, the worldly thinking of Egypt, meant that God could bring His people out, but He couldn't bring them in.

Am I disgraced to the testimony? Unbelievers cannot see in me features that belong to the possession and to the peace and to the produce of heaven. And they say God has failed. Those people are no better than we are.

There's the same association. There's the same ambition. There's the same activity.

There's no difference. God couldn't bring them in to what they profess. That's their approach of Egypt.

Now, in the very rolling of Gilgal, there was that which God was indicating is gone now. And they're going to enter into that possession of heaven. Could we stand today again under a cross? Well, we did at conversion.

Where that becomes a controlling factor in our very lives. Not only the person of the Savior of the ark, but the power of the Spirit of God. For God saved me, I was a cinema addict.

You'd probably call them movies here. I would have been in the picture house six nights a week. The seventh would have been open.

But when God saved me on the 5th of August, 1946, I couldn't go into a cinema. I dare not. Because of the laws of the Brethren, I wouldn't have kept me away from it a week.

Because of the love of Christ. Because of the cross of Calvary, I couldn't put my foot in. I'm only using that as a personal illustration.

You can see the impact, the difference that Christ must make. If the reproach of Egypt is to be rolled away. We are to be different and distinct and different from all that is in the world.

Stood at Gilgal. Now let's move to Jericho. The impassable flood has opened.

The implacable foe has been dealt with at least in picture. The consequence of that will be seen. Mind you, it wasn't fully seen in Israel.

Go through the book of Joshua when you have time. See where the flesh comes in again. They let it come back again.

Watch Achan, his covetousness. Look at him. Is that my heart? Taken from a doomed city.

Flesh, covetousness. Watch them with the Gibeonites. When they went preserved from that mistake.

Carelessness, prayerlessness. Young man, young woman. The flesh, covetousness.

Ambition. Money, gain, place. Gibeonites.

Association. Deceit. In a partner.

In a pathway. The flesh comes out. Look at the fact that they left those cities.

Geza, Gath, Ashdod. Every one of them leaving a mark on the testimony of God that if it had been dealt with at the start they would never have had the trouble. Who fell into trouble at Geza? Samson.

Who came from Gath? Goliath. Look at Ashdod. And that's the place of Dagon.

And that's where the ark is carried. Oh, if they'd only understood the lesson of the knife. As some of us look back, we regret.

We regret we just didn't learn the lesson. The lesson of the knife. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh.

Come to Gethsemane. Straightly set up, yes. But this is a strange way to go about taking that city that stands across their pathway, isn't it? And you know the detail of that marching around the city.

And they're told to keep quiet. Not a word out of you. Keep your mouth shut.

Just walk around the city. And on that seventh day, walk around it seven times. And then you come to the moment of blowing the trumpet.

And then, when the trumpet's blown, then shout! The shout comes before the fall. What's the shout? The shout is they believe God. Can you see that army? You could see them and think, well, that's terrible.

If they stand there and shout and the wall doesn't fall, that's unbelief. They were told to do something. And you know it stands to the credit of the people of God when they believe God.

And they did. They stood around that city. They marched around it.

The trumpet was blown. And they gave that great victor's shout. And the wall came down.

Mind you, they tried it at a later date. First Samuel 4, the ark. When they're facing the Philistines, when the ark came into the camp and they gave the shout, you see, they thought that they were going to repeat a past experience, and they discovered it didn't work.

This time they had the word of God. The word of God said, shout. I don't know what barriers across your pathway.

I would judge from my little experience amongst the people of God that there are saints here today, and you're facing an impregnable fortress. There's that across your pathway, and you can't see any way forward. That's the world.

That's something that stands across your passage, blocking your path into that realm of peace and the produce of ten and all that goes with it, the protection of God and all that goes with it, and you can't see how to get over that fortress of Jericho. Have you got a word? This is not the person of the Savior or the power of the Spirit. This is the principle of Scripture.

And in this word, there's that which will instruct, that which will guide, that which will give me at this particular point the very thing that I need. Am I prepared to accept it? But wait now. I've got to come to the third lesson.

Giving a shout. And what is that? That's Galatians 6 and 14. God forbid that I should glory.

Look into your heart. I look into mine. What do we glory in? God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified unto me and die unto the world, and a cross again lies across the pathway.

I'll have to acknowledge that that cross stands there between me and the world. It cuts it off. It cuts me off.

And whatever that problem is, I pause and I look for the principle of Scripture to guide. I was at a very critical point in one which had life's choices, and I knelt one evening in a little bedroom in Lurgan and pondered and read and prayed and asked for that guidance because there was a great barrier. There was that which I couldn't see the answer to right across the pathway.

And as I was on my knees, I heard a ban. There was the home of a new member of parliament, Stormont. She had just been elected.

And they were having a big garden party. And the bans were there, and the dignitaries were there, and the rules were there. And as I looked, I could see the answer to my problem because into my mind there came the words of a little hymn.

O worldly pomp and glory, your charms are spread in vain. I've heard a sweeter story, I've found a truer game. Where Christ of bliss befeareth, there is my love to bold.

There I shall be with Jesus. There I shall dwell with God. The problem was solved.

The walls came tumbling down. The pathway was cleared. Would you stand there? I trust at this conference there'll be many ascent.

We'll learn the lesson of the ark, the lesson of the night, and the lesson of the shout. May God bless us all.