Joshua 1-2Joshua 1-2, All The Land Promised To Moses and Abraham; Be strong and courageous; Conditional Success; Meditate On Scripture; Contemplative

Prayer; Spiritual Formation; Rahab The Harlot; Civil Disobedience; Flax; Scarlet Thread Of Salvation

• Today's fabulous photo by Zev Rothkoff brings the Bible to life! A modern-day shepherd is overlooking the 4,000 year old city of Shechem, where the biblical Joseph is buried.

BIBLE IN FIVEPastor Dave KooyersValley Bible FellowshipBox 433Boonville CA 95415http://www.slideshare.net/dkooyers www.ValleyBibleFellowship.org

(707) 895-2325God bless you as you examine His Word,Your servant in Christ, 2Cor. 4:5

These Microsoft PowerPoint presentations are provided "for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:12-15). To help Christians to "to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ." So that "we are no longer...tossed here and there...by every wind of doctrine." They may be downloaded and modified free of charge.

Matthew 10:8 …Freely you received, freely give.

Let's you read Joshua 1;

• Today's fabulous photo by Zev Rothkoff brings the Bible to life! A modern-day shepherd is overlooking the 4,000 year old city of Shechem, where the biblical Joseph is buried.

Deuteronomy 29:1, We’ve Come A Long Way

• Genesis 1-11; 4 events; creation, the fall, the flood, in the scattering of nations, 2000 years

• Genesis 12-50; 4 men; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, 350 years

• Exodus; Moses, plagues, Passover, Sinai• Leviticus; laws for the Jews, and Levites• Numbers; wilderness wanderings• Deuteronomy; 2nd giving of the Law

Deuteronomy 29:1, We’ve Come A Long Way

• NAS Deuteronomy 34:1 Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo… And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, …5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. 6 And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows his burial place to this day.

What Time Is It?

Joshua Introduction

• Joshua= “Jehovah saves”• Author= Joshua (age 90 approx.)• Date= 1405-1385’ish BC• Location= Promised Land, Israel/Canaan

BibleOverview Rose

Joshua 1 The Bible Confirms The Conquest

• NAU Nehemiah 9:23 "You made their sons numerous as the stars of heaven, And You brought them into the land Which You had told their fathers to enter and possess. 24 "So their sons entered and possessed the land. And You subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, And You gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, To do with them as they desired. 25 "They captured fortified cities and a fertile land. They took possession of houses full of every good thing, Hewn cisterns, vineyards, olive groves, Fruit trees in abundance. So they ate, were filled and grew fat, And reveled in Your great goodness.

Joshua 1 The Bible Confirms The Conquest

• Psalm 105:27 … 37 Then He brought them out with silver and gold… 42 For He remembered His holy word With Abraham His servant; 43 And He brought forth His people with joy, His chosen ones with a joyful shout. 44 He gave them also the lands of the nations, That they might take possession of the fruit of the peoples' labor, 45 So that they might keep His statutes And observe His laws, Praise the LORD!

Joshua 1 The Bible Confirms The Conquest

• NAU Acts 7:44 "Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern which he had seen. 45 "And having received it in their turn, our fathers brought it in with Joshua upon dispossessing the nations whom God drove out before our fathers, until the time of David.

Joshua 1 The Bible Confirms The Conquest

• NAU Hebrews 11:29 By faith they passed through the Red Sea as though they were passing through dry land; and the Egyptians, when they attempted it, were drowned. 30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. 31 By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace.

Joshua 1:3All The Land Promised To Moses/ Abraham

• NAU Joshua 1:3 "Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. 4 "From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun, will be your territory.

• NAU Deuteronomy 11:24 "Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours; your border will be from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the river, the river Euphrates, as far as the western sea.

• NAU Genesis 15:18 …the LORD made a covenant…From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates…

• NAU Deuteronomy 34:1 Now Moses… the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, 2 and all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, 3 and the Negev and the plain in the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. 4 Then the LORD said to him, "This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to your descendants’… 5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there…

Joshua 1:6, Be Strong And Courageous

• NAU Joshua 1:6 "Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

• NAU Joshua 1:7 "Only be strong and very courageous…• NAU Joshua 1:9 "Have I not commanded you? Be strong

and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

• NAU Joshua 1:18…only be strong and courageous.”• NAU Joshua 10:25 Joshua then said to them, "Do not

fear or be dismayed! Be strong and courageous, for thus the LORD will do to all your enemies with whom you fight."

Joshua 1:6, Be Strong And Courageous

• This phrase “be strong” is used in Joshua more than any other book of the Bible, and 4/5’s of those uses are in chapter 1.

• The Lord new that for Joshua to fill Moses’ shoes he would need some encouragement. Thus the repeated commandment to be strong.

• The Lord is compassionate!• When the Lord calls He equips.

Joshua 1:6, Be Strong And Courageous• Jerusalem Daily Photo, Today’s photo by Yehoshua

Halevi shows an IDF soldier at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Joshua 1:7, Conditional Success

• NAU Joshua 1:7 "Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go.

• NAU Joshua 7:5 The men of Ai struck down about thirty-six of their men, and pursued them from the gate as far as Shebarim and struck them down on the descent, so the hearts of the people melted and became as water.

• A. W. Tozer said, “The man who is elated by success and cast down by failure is still a carnal man. At best his fruit will have a worm in it.”

JOSHUA 1:8

Joshua 1:8, Meditate On Scripture

• Joshua 1:8 …you shall meditate on it …• "It is well to meditate upon the things of God, because

we thus get the real nutriment out of them. A man who hears many sermons, is not necessarily well-instructed in the faith. We may read so many religious books, that we overload our brains, and they may be unable to work under the weight of the great mass of paper and of printer's ink. The man who reads but one book, and that book his Bible, and then meditates much upon it, will be a better scholar in Christ's school than he who merely reads hundreds of books, and meditates not at all" (C.H. Spurgeon, "Meditating on the Scriptures").

Joshua 1:8, Meditate On Scripture

• NAU Joshua 1:8 …meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

• “so that”• You obey• Prosper• Have success• We should “meditate on” the word of God, but not

like the eastern religions and the new age does.• Just say no to Contemplative Prayer and Spiritual

Formation

Joshua 1:8, lighthousetrails.com

Contemplative Prayer, Spiritual Formation• September 22, 2015, http://www.lighthousetrails.com/booklet-tract-release.htm

• Beth Moore & Priscilla Shirer – Their History of Contemplative Prayer and Why War Room Should Not Have Used Them by John Lanagan and the Editors at Lighthouse Trails is our newest Lighthouse Trails Booklet Tract. The Booklet Tract is 14 pages long and sells for $1.95 for single copies. Quantity discounts are as much as 50% off retail. Our Booklet Tracts are designed to give away to others or for your own personal use. Below is the content of the booklet. To order copies of Beth Moore & Priscilla Shirer – Their History of Contemplative Prayer and Why War Room Should Not Have Used Them click here.

• I knew the Lord was calling me to experience Him in prayer in a brand new way.1—Priscilla Shirer• [I]f we are not still before Him [God], we will never truly know, to the depths of the marrow in our bones, that He is God.

There has got to be a stillness.2—Beth Moore• Contemplative prayer, which Priscilla Shirer refers to as her “brand new way” and Beth Moore says is essential in really

knowing God, is in reality an ancient prayer practice that is essentially the same as New Age or Eastern meditation though disguised with Christian terminology. Those who participate and enter the contemplative silence, as it is called, open themselves to great deception.

• Now, because of the success of the War Room movie, many fans are going to flock to the websites and materials of Beth Moore and Priscilla Shirer. Those who buy Shirer’s book, Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When God Speaks, will discover Shirer’s affinity with contemplative prayer. And those who buy the DVD Be Still or a book titled When Godly People Do Ungodly Things will learn of Moore’s contemplative prayer propensities.

• Contemplative prayer is a primary factor to consider as we watch the visible church depart from sound doctrine more and more. It is promoted by such ministries as Mike Bickle’s International House of Prayer (IHOP), Bethel Church of Redding, California (Bill and Beni Johnson), Saddleback’s Rick Warren, author Kenneth Boa, and pastor and author Tim Keller to name just a few.

• How was Priscilla Shirer introduced to this practice? She writes: [A] friend sent me a book on silent prayer. The book explains how purposeful periods of silent prayer can help believers hear God’s voice. I was very drawn to the spiritual journey of the author, and I read the book twice. As my heart burned within me, I knew that the Lord was calling me to experience Him in prayer in a brand new way.3

• Thus fascinated with this newly discovered concept, Shirer then read a Bible verse, which she perceived as a Word from the Lord: “As you enter the house of God, keep your ears open and your mouth shut” (Ecclesiastes 5:1, NLT). She explains:

• It confirmed the message of the book I had been so drawn to and what I sensed the Holy Spirit was leading me to do.4

• She was further amazed to learn that some of the women from her church were going to participate in a “silent prayer retreat. Women would gather to spend 36 hours of silence in anticipation of hearing the voice of God.”5

• She had read about this in the book on silent prayer, but now here were people actually talking about the same thing. Shirer seems to have taken all this as part of God’s plan.

• Beth Moore and Her Contemplative Hero• In her book When Godly People Do Ungodly Things, in a section about “Unceasing Prayer,” Beth Moore states:

• I have picked up on the terminology of Brother Lawrence [a Carmelite mystic], who called praying unceasingly practicing God’s presence. In fact, practicing God’s presence has been my number one goal for the last year.6

• Moore says:

• A head full of biblical knowledge without a heart passionately in love with Christ is terribly dangerous—a stronghold waiting to happen. The head is full, but the heart and soul are still unsatisfied.7

• This language is very indicative of contemplatives and echoes Richard Foster who says we have become barren and dry within or Rick Warren who believes the church needs Spiritual Formation (i.e., contemplative prayer) to come to “full maturity.”8 However, this could lead one to think that the Word of God is little more than a philosophy or belief system and needs the help of contemplative prayer to be effective at all. The insinuation is that the Holy Spirit is dormant and ineffective without this vital stimuli. Contemplatives make a distinction between studying and pondering on the Word of God versus loving Him, suggesting that we cannot love Him or know Him simply by studying His Word or even through normal prayer—we must practice contemplative to accomplish this.

• In Moore’s book, she makes frequent favorable references to contemplative pioneer Brennan Manning, stating that his contribution to “our generation of believers may be a gift without parallel.”9 Yet Manning was a devout admirer of Beatrice Bruteau, founder of The School for Contemplation. Bruteau believes God is within every human being and wrote the book, What We Can Learn from the East. In an interview, she said:

• We have realized ourselves as the Self that says only I AM, with no predicate following, not “I am a this” or “I have that quality.” Only unlimited, absolute “I AM.”10

• In his book, Abba’s Child, Manning calls Bruteau a “trustworthy guide to contemplative consciousness.”11 Manning defines “contemplative consciousness” in the following statements:

• Choose a single, sacred word or phrase that captures something of the flavor of your intimate relationship with God. A word such as Jesus, Abba, Peace, God or a phrase such as “Abba, I belong to you.” . . . Without moving your lips, repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often.12

• When distractions come … simply return to listening to your sacred word…. [G]ently return [your mind] to your sacred word.13

• [E]nter into the great silence of God. Alone in that silence, the noise within will subside and the Voice of Love will be heard.14

• That “Voice of Love” is the voice heard when one enters the contemplative silence. Furthering Beth Moore’s great admiration for Manning, she quotes him from his book Ragamuffin Gospel calling the book “one of the most remarkable books”15 she has ever read. But it is this very book that reveals Manning’s true spiritual affinity. In the back of Ragamuffin Gospel, Manning makes reference to Catholic priest and mystic Basil Pennington saying that Pennington’s methods of prayer will provide us with “a way of praying that leads to a deep living relationship with God.”16 Pennington’s methods of prayer draw from Eastern religions. In his book, Finding Grace at the Center, Pennington says:

• We should not hesitate to take the fruit of the age-old wisdom of the East and “capture” it for Christ. Indeed, those of us who are in ministry should make the necessary effort to acquaint ourselves with as many of these Eastern techniques as possible. Many Christians who take their prayer life seriously have been greatly helped by Yoga, Zen, TM and similar practices.17

• In Ragamuffin Gospel, Manning also cites Carl Jung as well as interspiritualists and contemplative mystics, Anthony De Mello, Marcus Borg (who denies the Virgin birth and Jesus being Son of God), Morton Kelsey, Gerald May, Henri Nouwen, Alan Jones (who denies the atonement), Eugene Peterson, and goddess worshipper Sue Monk Kidd. Most of these figures are panentheistic, and no discerning Bible teacher would ever point followers to them, either directly or indirectly! And yet, how many of Beth Moore followers have been introduced to the writings of these authors through her glowing recommendation of Brennan Manning and the Ragamuffin Gospel?

• For Moore to call Manning’s book “remarkable” and to say his contribution to this generation of believers is “a gift without parallel” leads one to conclude that Beth Moore has been highly influenced by Manning’s spirituality.

• The Be Still Film• In 2006, Fox Home Entertainment released a film titled Be Still. One person to whom they reached out to be in the film

was Priscilla Shirer. According to Priscilla,

• They were creating a program on contemplative prayer called Be Still. They asked me to be a part of this project that was designed to help Americans see the importance of spending time before God in stillness. I knew immediately that God wanted me to be a part of the project.18

• And so she was, along with Beth Moore who played a vital role in the Be Still film as well. The producers and directors of the film explained the reason they made the film:

• My husband and I wanted to find a way to introduce others in the modern church to this beautiful early church practice.19 (emphasis added)

• This “early church practice” is referring to the Desert Fathers—ancient monks who had learned mystical prayer practices from those in other religions. In Be Still, Shirer states that nothing, not even a “great book,” could take the place of experiencing what she calls “the manifest presence of God.”20 If there is one main message in the Be Still DVD, it is: you cannot really know God if you do not practice the art of going into the contemplative silence.

• Priscilla Shirer talks about her participation in the Be Still DVD on her website, where she describes contemplative prayer as seeing “God far more clearly than we can in the normal frantic rhythm of life.”21 Contemplatives teach that in the normal “rhythm,” we cannot have a real relationship with God, and in order to hear Him, we must “change frequencies.” Former Saddleback Church pastor and contemplative advocate Lance Witt explains:

• The goal of solitude is not so much to unplug from my crazy world, as it is to change frequencies so that I can hear the Father. Richard Foster has said, “Solitude doesn’t give us the power to win the rat race, but to ignore it altogether.”22

• To “change frequencies,” contemplative prayer is needed so that thoughts are blocked out. Brennan Manning states:

• [T]he first step in faith is to stop thinking about God at the time of prayer.23

• Then, once thoughts have been halted through practicing contemplative prayer, an altered state is reached where our minds go into a kind of neutral state, and then, they say, we can finally hear the voice of God.24

• The silence the Be Still DVD refers to is a special state of mind, different than normal prayer, and the DVD introduces an array of meditators from a number of religious persuasions to tell viewers about this state of silence. Participants in the DVD are promoters of everything from guided imagery to breath prayers to interspirituality. This infomercial for contemplative prayer is a deceptive collection of dangerous commentaries, and there should be a warning label on the cover—NSFA—Not Safe For Anyone.25

• Shortly after the DVD was released, Lighthouse Trails editors spoke with Beth Moore’s personal assistant who said Moore did not have a problem with Richard Foster or Dallas Willard’s teachings. To reiterate this, Moore’s ministry, Living Proof Ministries, issued a statement a few weeks after the release of the DVD that stated, “[W]e believe that once you view the Be Still video you will agree that there is no problem with its expression of Truth.”26 Living Proof offered to send a free copy of the DVD to anyone who received their e-mail statement and wished to view the DVD, saying that, “[I]t would be our privilege to do this for you to assure you that there is no problem with Beth’s participation in the Be Still video.”27 This statement was issued because several women contacted Moore’s ministry after reading the Lighthouse Trails report on the Be Still DVD.

• In the Be Still DVD, Moore states: “[I]f we are not still before Him [God], we will never truly know to the depths of the marrow of our bones that He is God. There’s got to be a stillness.”28 When Moore says it is not possible to “truly know” He is God without “a stillness,” she is not talking about a quiet place to pray and spend time in God’s Word, but rather she is talking about a stillness of the mind—this is what contemplatives strive for—unless you practice this stillness of the mind, your relationship with the Lord is inadequate. According to Beth Moore, you don’t even know Him in the way you should.

• Beth Moore and the Catholic Church• If you study the beliefs and history of contemplative prayer mystics, you will find that over time, they absorb

interspiritual and panentheistic outlooks. This happened to Henri Nouwen and Brennan Manning, for example. Proponents also begin to share an affinity with Catholicism, viewing it as a legitimate form of Christianity. That makes sense given that the mystical prayer practice came out of the Roman Catholic monasteries (via Thomas Merton, Basil Pennington, Thomas Keating, etc). A case in point is when in 2014 Beth Moore shared with a large audience a “vision” she claimed was from God. In order to illustrate her vision to her audience, she had a number of women come up on stage, and she divided them into various “denominational” groups, one of which was a group of Catholic women. She said she saw a community of these different groups that was “the church as Jesus sees it.”29

• Someone who has become a significant part of Beth Moore’s ministry is TV Christian host, James Robison. Moore is one of the regular speakers on his show and resonates with his work. In a May 2014 article, Robison wrote:

• I believe in the importance of unity among those who know Christ, who profess to be “Christians.” . . . I believe there is an important spiritual awakening beginning in the hearts of those truly committed to Christ in the Protestant and Catholic communities. Is it possible that Pope Francis may prove to be an answer not only to the prayers of Catholics, but also those known as Protestants?30

• The fact that Moore sees the Catholic Church as a legitimate denomination within the Body of Christ is evidence that she shares Robison’s views. Apparently, they both see Catholicism as a valid practice.

• Priscilla Shirer—A Strange Practice with Contemplative Origins• In her book, Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When God Speaks, Priscilla Shirer writes:

• As I meditate upon a verse, I will often insert my name or a personal pronoun into it to make it more personal. If I’m reading and meditating on a Bible story, I will become the main character so that it’s not merely someone else’s experience with God, but my own. I often ask myself what God would have me do as a result of what I contemplated.31 (emphasis added)

• So, it would not be Moses, but Priscilla and the Burning Bush? (Exodus 3:2-4)

• Not Elisabeth, but Priscilla, Mother of John the Baptist? (Luke 1:13)

• Not Eve, but Priscilla, wife of Adam? (Genesis 2)

• The Bible is very clear about the importance of preserving the Word of God— not altering it, not adding to it, and not taking away from it.

• Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. (Proverbs 30:5-6)

• One has to ask, where did Priscilla Shirer get this idea of inserting herself into God’s Word as Bible characters? It is very likely Shirer got this idea from contemplative teacher Jan Johnson. According to Priscilla Shirer:

• Years ago, I got a chance to meet Jan Johnson. . . . I was encouraged and redirected in so many ways. As a young woman trying to navigate the ins and outs of my relationship with the Lord, Ms. Jan spoke wisdom into my life that was extremely pivotal in my life—personally and in ministry.32 (emphasis added)

• Priscilla Shirer quotes Jan Johnson, an advocate of guided meditations, in her book Discerning the Voice of God.33 (Incidentally, Shirer also quotes Brother Lawrence, Dallas Willard, and other contemplatives in the book.)

• On Jan Johnson’s website, it asks:

• Have you ever imagined what it would be like to be present in the Christmas story? How might you have felt if you were Zechariah or Elizabeth, Mary or Joseph? What if you had been an angel, a shepherd, or one of the wise men? In this online retreat featuring Jan Johnson’s Advent guide, you’ll be invited to become part of the events surrounding the birth of the Christ child. You’ll be invited to ‘taste and see’—to live inside the story for a while.34 (emphasis added)

• People like Wycliffe and Tyndale died for the Word of God so that we could . . . pretend to replace saints and angels in Bible stories as if we were putting on clothes for a costume party? No, they did not. This practice doesn’t honor God or His Word.

• Jan Johnson has an Ignatian background.35 Ignatius of Loyola was founder of the Jesuits and part of the Catholic church’s counter-reformation. To this day, the Jesuits make great efforts to win back the lost brethren to the Mother Church and are practitioners of contemplative prayer.36 According to one pro-Ignatian website:

• Ignatian spirituality sees the same with the stories in the Bible. Our imagination can place ourselves in the boat with Jesus and his friends on the stormy sea. Or at the table at the Last Supper, listening in on the conversation, even participating. Ignatius says if we let our imagination free, not forcing it or “scripting” it, God can use it to show us something. I recall, in my own prayer, the vivid scene with Mary and Martha. I was one of their friends waiting for Jesus to arrive to raise from the dead our brother Lazarus. We spoke about Lazarus’ life and how much we missed him. But then our friend Jesus came along and brought him back to life. You should have seen the tears and embraces as the four of us rejoiced.37

• When we read something like this, we cannot help but think of the admonition from Scripture: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

• One writer describes Jan Johnson’s approach to meditating with Advent and Christmas stories: “Johnson invites readers to enter into the stories through a sort of neo-Ignatian approach she calls ‘participative meditation.’”38

• There seems little doubt that Priscilla Shirer was influenced in more ways than one by Jan Johnson.

• Not Safe For Anyone• Contemplative teachers will not advise believers to focus on a repetitive Eastern style mantra like “Ommm” (for example)

but rather on a word or phrase like “Jesus” or “Abba Father” or a Scripture verse. In this way, the contemplative prayer appears “Christian” but nevertheless serves as entrance to the silence. Often, a practice called Lectio Divina is implemented. This is where words or phrases from Scripture or other books are repeated slowly to help get the focus off our thoughts and enter the contemplative silence.

• The silence of contemplative prayer is rich ground for false visions, the voice of lying “christs,” and supernatural esoteric experiences. Author and research analyst Ray Yungen says that in contemplative prayer one can come into contact with familiar spirits because of the occult nature of contemplative, and in actuality, the silence found in contemplative prayer is a dangerous substitute for the Holy Spirit.

• We realize that millions of women adore Beth Moore and Priscilla Shirer, and the notion that either woman would be tied in with an occultic-based New Age type mystical prayer movement would seem outlandish. But even one of the most widely read Christian magazines identifies Moore as a contemplative advocate in a 2010 Christianity Today cover story titled “First Came the Bible.”39

• Some years ago, contemplative prayer defenders came up with a so-called answer to Christians who saw the connection between contemplative prayer and Eastern and New Age meditation. They said that New Age and Eastern practitioners strive to empty the mind whereas Christian contemplatives seek to fill the mind with God. But just because the intent may be different, the methods are the same, and the outcome is the same. One can be very well intentioned yet be very fully deceived.

• We would like to say here that we have appreciated in the past the Kendrick brothers (producers of War Room) for their Christian, family-friendly films, Fighting The Giants, Fireproof, and Courageous and found these to be inspiring contributions for the family. But we cannot say this about War Room because the movie is going to bring many women into the sphere of influence of Priscilla Shirer and Beth Moore. At best, the use of these two women will send out a confusing message where a movie about prayer uses two major proponents of contemplative prayer to inspire its audience. We wish the Kendricks would have done their homework before making the decision to use two women who promote a dangerous mystical prayer practice in their movie about prayer.

• It’s not likely that Priscilla Shirer and Beth Moore see contemplative prayer as spiritually dangerous—nor will thousands, even potentially millions, of men and women who see War Room and subsequently buy Shirer or Moore’s books, or their Be Still DVD.

• A Spiritual Awakening?• The Bible talks about a great falling away and multitudes being deceived prior to the Lord’s return. But Christian leaders

today aren’t warning about that; rather, they are telling everyone that we are on the brink of a great spiritual awakening.

• “Spiritual awakening” has become a “mantra” within evangelical Christianity. Terms like One, Awaken, Awake, Great Awakening, Spiritual Awakening, are being broadcasted throughout the church. While it is a good thing to desire true repentance and revival, how can leaders who embrace a mystical spirituality and who don’t understand spiritual deception (and are even participating in spiritual deception) help bring about true revival?

• In 2013, Beth Moore spoke at James Robison’s Awake Now Conference and said that God showed her a great spiritual awakening is coming. Interestingly, Moore warned that audience of over 4000 people about those who would question this great awakening and “downpour”:

• But we must be prepared in advance for scoffers. I will say that again. We must be prepared in advance for scoffers. And here’s the thing. The unbelieving world scoffing is not going to bother us that much. We’re used to them thinking that we are idiots. . . . That’s not what’s going to bother us so much. What’s going to bother us, and I believe that God is saying, “Get prepared for it so you know in advance it is coming” so when it does happen you’re not all disturbed and all rocked by it because it is going to come from some in our own Christian realm—our own brothers and sisters. We’re going to have people that are honestly going to want to debate and argue with us about awakening and downpours. What do you want here? They’re going to say, that’s not the way it should look.

• You know what, dude? I’m just asking you, are you thirsty? Are you hungry? I can’t think of the way to the semantics to get it like you want it. But I will say to you, I’m just thirsty, and I’m hungry. But there will be scoffers, and they will be the far bigger threat, the one within our own brothers and sisters, our own family of God—far, far more demoralizing. And yes, it will come from bullies, and yes, it will come from the mean-spirited.40

• As if giving a prophetic warning, Beth Moore is setting the stage to marginalize discerning Christians who would question this great “spiritual awakening.” In other words, no one should dare challenge the leaders of this coming spiritual awakening even though Scripture instructs us to be good Bereans and to test all things with the Word of God.

• Beth Moore’s statement that Brennan Manning’s contribution to “our generation of believers may be a gift without parallel” has serious implications. Beatrice Bruteau, whom Manning said is a “trustworthy guide to contemplative consciousness,” wrote the foreword to a book called The Mystic Heart by New Ager Wayne Teasdale. That book actually lays out the groundwork that contemplative prayer will unite Christianity with all the world’s religions at a mystical level. The complete union of all the world’s religions cannot be accomplished without a form of mysticism (which removes all “doctrinal” barriers) within Christianity—and that form is contemplative prayer, the very thing that War Room’s two actresses promote.

• Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers. (Isaiah 2:6)

• To order copies of Beth Moore & Priscilla Shirer – Their History of Contemplative Prayer and Why War Room Should Not Have Used Them, click here.

• Endnotes:• 1. Priscilla Shirer, Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When God Speaks (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2007

edition), p. 39• 2. Beth Moore, Be Still DVD (Fox Home Entertainment, April 2006), section: “Contemplative Prayer: The Divine Romance

Between God and Man”• 3. Priscilla Shirer, Discerning the Voice of God, op. cit.• 4. Ibid.• 5. Ibid.• 6. Beth Moore, When Godly People Do Ungodly Things (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2002), p. 109.• 7. Ibid., p. 60.• 8. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), p. 126-127.• 9. Beth Moore, When Godly People Do Ungodly Things, op. cit., pp. 72-73.• 10. Beatrice Bruteau interview: The Song That Goes On Singing

(http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/beatrice-bruteau-the-song-that).• 11. Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1994), p. 180.• 12. Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1996, Revised Edition), p. 218.• 13. Ibid., p. 203.• 14. Ibid., p. 200.• 15. Beth Moore, When Godly People Do Ungodly Things, op. cit., p. 290.• 16. Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2000 Edition), p. 212.• 17. M. Basil Pennington, Thomas Keating, Thomas E. Clarke, Finding Grace at the Center (Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s

Pub., 1978), pp. 5-6; cited from A Time of Departing, 2nd ed., p.64 by Ray Yungen.• 18. Priscilla Shirer, Discerning the Voice of God, op. cit.• 19. Whitney Hopler, “‘Be Still’ Invites Viewers to Discover Contemplative Prayer” (Crosswalk.com, March 27, 2006,

http://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/be-still-invites-viewers-to-discover-contemplative-prayer-1386003.html?ps=0), citing Amy Reinhold, Producer and Director of Be Still DVD.

• 20. Priscilla Shirer, Be Still DVD, op, cit., section: “Alone With God.”• 21. Priscilla Shirer’s website: http://www.goingbeyond.com/ministry/ministry-faqs.• 22. Lance Witt, “Enjoying God’s Presence in Solitude” (Rick Warren’s original Pastors.com website:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060510014820/www.pastors.com/RWMT/?id=59&artid=2043&expand=1).• 23. Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus, op. cit., p. 212.• 24. Ray Yungen introduced this idea in his book A Time of Departing, chapter 1, page 15: In explaining how the mind is

put into a neutral state during contemplative prayer: “The meditation most of us are familiar with involves a deep, continuous thinking about something. But New Age meditation entails just the opposite. It involves ridding oneself of all thoughts in order to still the mind by putting it in the equivalent of pause or neutral. A comparison would be that of turning a fast-moving stream into a still pond. When meditation is employed, stopping the free flow of thinking, it holds back active thought and causes a shift in consciousness. This condition is not to be confused with daydreaming, where the mind dwells on a subject. Visit www.atimeofdeparting.com.

• 25. http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/bestilldvd.htm.• 26. May 26, 2006 statement from Living Proof Ministries:

http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/bethmoorestatement.htm.• 27. Ibid.• 28. Beth Moore, Be Still DVD, op. cit.• 29. Lighthouse Trails Editors, “Is Beth Moore’s ‘Spiritual Awakening’ Taking the Evangelical Church Toward Rome?”

(http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=15914). You can watch the video clip of Moore at this event on this page.

• 30. James Robison, “Pope Francis on Life Today” (http://www.jamesrobison.net/pope-francis).• 31. Priscilla Shirer, Discerning the Voice of God, op. cit., p. 39.• 32. http://www.goingbeyond.com/blog/wisbits.• 33. Ibid., pp. 145-46.• 34. http://www.janjohnson.org/taste_-_see.html• 35. Jan Johnson, Education: BA, Christian education, Ozark Christian College; journalism courses, UCLA; spirituality

courses, Azusa Pacific University; graduate, Academy for Spiritual Formation; Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola 30-day Retreat, 2006; D.Min. Graduate Theological Foundation (Ignatian Spirituality & Spiritual Direction), 2006.

• 36. Read Roger Oakland’s article, “The Jesuit Agenda” to understand more about the Jesuits (see www.lighthousetrails.com under booklet tracts).

• 37. godinallthings.com/2012/05/24/dreams-imagination.• 38. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithforward/2014/11/early-christmas-joy-meditating-with-the-advent-and-

christmas-stories.• 39. Halee Gray Scott, “First Came the Bible” (Christianity Today, August 2010, Vol. 54, No. 8, Pg 27,

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/august/19.27.html).• 40. You can view this at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4CYqHhCwsE.

• To order copies of Beth Moore & Priscilla Shirer – Their History of Contemplative Prayer and Why War Room Should Not Have Used Them, click here.

• Appendix (included in the booklet)• The Nature Behind Contemplative Spirituality• By Ray Yungen• Many Christians might have great difficulty accepting the assessment that what is termed Christian mysticism is, in truth,

not Christian at all. They might feel this rejection is spawned by a heresy-hunting mentality that completely ignores the love and devotion to God that also accompanies the mystical life. To those who are skeptical, I suggest examining the writings of Philip St. Romain, who wrote a book about his journey into contemplative prayer called Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality. This title is revealing because kundalini is a Hindu term for the mystical power or force that underlies Hindu spirituality. In Hinduism, it is commonly referred to as the serpent power.

• St. Romain, a substance abuse counselor and devout Catholic lay minister, began his journey while practicing contemplative prayer or resting in the still point, as he called it. What happened to him following this practice should bear the utmost scrutiny from the evangelical community—especially from its leadership. The future course of evangelical Christianity rests on whether St. Romain’s path is just a fluke or if it is the norm for contemplative spirituality.

• Having rejected mental prayer as “unproductive,”1 he embraced the prayer form that switches off the mind, creating what he described as a mental passivity. What he encountered next underscores my concern with sobering clarity:

• Then came the lights! The gold swirls that I had noted on occasion began to intensify, forming themselves into patterns that both intrigued and captivated me . . . There were always four or five of these; as soon as one would fade, another would appear, even brighter and more intense . . . They came through complete passivity and only after I had been in the silence for a while. 2 (emphasis mine)

• After this, St. Romain began to sense “wise sayings” coming into his mind and felt he was “receiving messages from another.”3 He also had physical developments occur during his periods in the silence. He would feel “prickly sensations” on the top of his head and at times it would “fizzle with energy.”4 This sensation would go on for days. The culmination of St. Romain’s mystical excursion was predictable—when you do Christian yoga or Christian Zen you end up with Christian samadhi as did he. He proclaimed:

• No longer is there any sense of alienation, for the Ground that flows throughout my being is identical with the Reality of all creation. It seems that the mystics of all the world’s religions know something of this.5

• St. Romain, logically, passed on to the next stage with:

• [T]he significance of this work, perhaps, lies in its potential to contribute to the dialogue between Christianity and Eastern forms of mysticism such as are promoted in what is called New Age spirituality.6

• Many people believe St. Romain is a devout Christian. He claims he loves Jesus, believes in salvation, and is a member in good standing within his church. What changed though were his sensibilities. He says:

• I cannot make any decisions for myself without the approbation of the inner adviser, whose voice speaks so clearly in times of need . . . there is a distinct sense of an inner eye of some kind “seeing” with my two sense eyes.7

• St. Romain would probably be astounded that somebody would question his claims to finding truth because of the positive nature of his mysticism. But is this “inner adviser” with whom St. Romain has connected really God? This is a fair question to ask especially when this prayer method has now spread within a broad spectrum of Christianity.

• St. Romain makes one observation in his book that I take very seriously. Like his secular practical mystic brethren, he has a strong sense of mission and destiny. He predicts:

• Could it be that those who make the journey to the True Self are, in some ways, demonstrating what lies in store for the entire race? What a magnificent world that would be—for the majority of people to be living out of the True Self state. Such a world cannot come, however, unless hundreds of thousands of people experience the regression of the Ego in the service of transcendence [meditation], and then restructure the culture to accommodate similar growth for millions of others. I believe we are only now beginning to recognize this task.8

• A book titled Metaphysical Primer: A Guide to Understanding Metaphysics outlines the basic laws and principles of the New Age movement. First and foremost is the following principle:

• You are one with the Deity, as is all of humanity . . . Everything is one with everything else. All that is on Earth is an expression of the One Deity and is permeated with Its energies.9

• St. Romain’s statement was, “[T]he Ground [God] that flows throughout my being is identical with the Reality of all creation.”10 The two views are identical!

• St. Romain came to this view through standard contemplative prayer, not Zen, not yoga but a Christian form of these practices.

• Without the mystical connection, there can be no oneness. The second always follows the first. Here lies the heart of occultism.

• There is a profound and imminent danger taking place within the walls of Christianity. Doctrine has become less important than feeling, and this has led to a mystical paradigm shift. People who promote a presumably godly form of spirituality can indeed come against the truth of Christ.

• How could this mystical revolution have come about? How could this perspective have become so widespread? The answer is that over the last thirty or forty years a number of authors have struck a deep chord with millions of readers and seekers within Christianity. These writers have presented and promoted the contemplative view to the extent that many now see it as the only way to “go deeper” in the Christian life. They are the ones who prompt men and women to plunge into contemplative practice. It is their message that leads people to experience the “lights” and the “inner adviser!”

• To order copies of Beth Moore & Priscilla Shirer – Their History of Contemplative Prayer and Why War Room Should Not Have Used Them, click here.

• Appendix Endnotes:• 1. Philip St. Romain, Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality (New York, NY: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1995), p.

24.• 2. Ibid., pp. 20-21.• 3. Ibid., pp. 22-23.• 4. Ibid., pp. 28-29.• 5. Ibid., p. 107.• 6. Ibid., pp. 48-49.• 7. Ibid., p. 39.• 8. Ibid., pp. 75-76.• 9. Deborah Hughes and Jane Robertson-Boudreaux, Metaphysical Primer: A Guide to Understanding Metaphysics (Estes

Park, CO: Metagnosis Pub., 1991), p. 27.• 10. St. Romain, Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality, op. cit., p. 107.

• To order copies of Beth Moore & Priscilla Shirer – Their History of Contemplative Prayer and Why War Room Should Not Have Used Them, click here.

Joshua 1:8, Meditate On Scripture not Contemplative Spirituality

• Have You Contemplated Your Spirituality? with Larry DeBruyn - part 1, http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=6e273db3-e1b3-4e88-8e09-9ce1c04c32d2&c=8a32c1d0-bee4-11e3-8d37-d4ae528eade9&ch=8b278210-bee4-11e3-8d63-d4ae528eade9

• Gary: Welcome to Search the Scriptures 24/7, a radio ministry of The Berean Call with T.A. McMahon. I'm Gary Carmichael. We're glad you could join us! In today's program, Tom begins a two-part series with guest Larry DeBruyn as they address the question: Have You Contemplated Your Spirituality? Here's TBC executive director, Tom McMahon.

• Tom: Thanks, Gary. Here's what's up for this program and next week, the Lord willing: the topic is contemplative spirituality, and on the phone to discuss the subject with me is Larry DeBruyn. Larry is a former pastor, heads Guarding His Flock Ministries; he's a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary's Masters Program, and the author of Unshackled: Breaking Away from Seductive Spirituality. He writes articles for a number of biblical discernment websites, including Herescope and The Alliance for Biblical Integrity. Larry, welcome to Search the Scriptures 24/7.

• Larry: Well, Tom, it's really good to be with you today, and may the Lord bless our time together and help us as we have this discussion about contemplative spirituality.

• Tom: Amen, and amen! Larry, let's start off with a basic definition of contemplative spirituality, lest there be some confusion among our listeners. But before you go there, let me preface your definition by saying that we're presenting this subject because contemplative spirituality, as you'll learn from our interview, and its teachings, have become...well, they're practices that have become incredibly popular in Christendom, and we want to hold that up - what's going on - up to the Scriptures to see if its teachings and practices are consistent - true...if they're consistent or true to what the Bible teaches, and most of our listeners, Larry, as you probably know, most of our listeners are quite aware that that's what we do as a ministry, and that's the focus of all of our programs. But for new listeners, I think it's helpful to let them know what we're about.

• So, contemplative spirituality: Give us a general definition and description.• Larry: Well, it really is the word "contemplate," which means to think, but in the instance of contemplative spirituality,

the idea is that you rid your mind of any kind of external stimuli that are within your environment, so that after you've rid your mind of those stimuli, that you can kind of create a tabula rasa, so to speak - that's a blank slate in which God can speak to you. And in the process of God speaking - people can experience altered states of consciousness; that is, that they will experience transfer from one reality to another reality.

• Now, contemplative spirituality is rooted in mysticism and the occult, but often it's wrapped in Christian terminology and adopted by Christians and it's given a spiritual spin so that it's made out to be that people are very spiritual who are doing that.

• Well, there's no question about the spirituality involved in it. The only question is about the source of it. Foundational to contemplative spirituality is pantheism. That is the idea that God is all, or panentheism, that is that God is in all. Because the assumption is that either God is either all or in all, that you as a part of God can connect with God through contemplation. Now, what we have to understand is that contemplation is an exercise that is mystical in nature. In fact, it wasn't until, oh, about the fifth century AD that the Latin changed the word "mysticism" to "contemplation." So they're twins that come together, and they're very much, I would say, absorbed one with another. So when you're contemplating, you're a mystic; and when you're a mystic, you're contemplating.

• So contemplative spirituality is an attempt to make contact with God or whoever or whatever is out there.

• Tom: Now, Larry, in the things that we're dealing with here, there are going to be some terms that maybe people aren't familiar with...

• Larry: Right.

• Tom: Obviously we're not going to cover everything in this interview this week and next week, but there are some things that are very basic, and I think you've given us a better understanding of mysticism, particularly Eastern mysticism - what's behind that. But the thing that confuses some Christians is meditation. There's biblical meditation and there's Eastern meditation. Could you explain those two?

• Larry: Well, the one is objective - that is biblical meditation. For example, Psalm 1 tells us that the blessed man is one who meditates in God's Law day and night, 24/7. In other words, it's a part of his consciousness. He goes over and over and over it again. In 1985, I was in the airport heading over to Israel, and I saw some Jewish men before the wall there at the airport at JFK with Torah in hand and moving toward the wall and moving away from the wall, reading Torah constantly. That was the Jewish idea of meditation. That's the scriptural idea of meditation.

• Eastern meditation is, however, different. It is subjective, not objective. The idea is that meditation will deliver certain feelings, a sense of belonging to the Universe. Where there was alienation, maybe there will occur harmony, and on and on and on. But there is nothing objective about it. It is totally subjective, and it is often based upon feelings or emotions. These things in Scripture are talked about as being adverse to true spirituality.

• For example, in Galatians 5, it says, "Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh." There's this contrast that is drawn there by the Apostle Paul between walking in the Spirit and the lusts of the flesh. I place Eastern Contemplative Spirituality in the context of a fleshly experience. It is one that belongs to the world below with the hope that the meditator, or the mystic, will contact the world above.

• Tom: Right, and I think that's an important aspect. People who - as you mentioned earlier, speaking about mysticism, because it's so related -they're trying to have a blank slate, open themselves to whatever is out there. We're going to talk about this in more detail. It's an altered state of consciousness that opens their minds to whatever, whereas, as you're pointing out, Larry, biblical meditation deals with the content of Scripture. It's objective. This is what God's saying. Now, how am I going to handle this? How am I going to understand it?

• You know, I love Proverbs 4:7: "Wisdom is the principle thing; therefore, get wisdom. But in all thy getting, get understanding." That is biblical meditation.

• Larry: Right. And those that practice contemplation within the Christian sphere often look to Jesus as an example of being a Meditator. They have two words of "solitude" and "silence," and while Jesus practiced solitude - we know that - He never practiced silence. He never promoted nor practiced what they call "silent prayer," which is meditative prayer. Nevertheless, what is being sold to the church is that He did. But He didn't!

• Tom: No! And Him, getting away from the crowds, that was so that He could communicate with His Father! He wasn't distracted by these...

• Larry: There's nothing wrong with that...

• Tom: No, absolutely not!

• Larry: We all need that...

• Tom: Although we're going to talk to an abuse of that idea a little later; some of the things I've read that you've written were really, really interesting, and we'll talk about that. But, Larry, let's go back to the overall goal. What would you say is the goal, or the objective, of contemplative teachings and practices?

• Larry: Well, the goal, if we're defining it in what has been considered a Christian way, is union with God.

• Tom: Right.

• Larry: That's the ultimate goal. That is, to hear God speak to you. Perhaps take a journey to heaven, to see God. It can be any one of a number of experiences, but the ultimate goal is unification with God. And generally what is proposed is what they call a triple way, or a three-fold path, to that unification with God. And it begins with contemplation and perhaps prefatory to contemplation is something called purgation, where you might flagellate yourself or beat yourself - in other words, making the flesh diminish while the spirit increases.

• But from contemplation, then you move on to illumination. That's kind of the "light and power show" of the meditating experience, when people see visions and hear voices and perhaps even have divine visitations.

• And then the third stage is unification, where they become "one" with God. This is a practice, or I would say the path, that has been embraced by many Christians for perhaps hundreds if not thousands of years - over a thousand - probably since about 300 AD, somewhere in that area, with St. Anthony. It began when he moved into the desert and had experiences - to be alone - and sought these experiences, and there are many reports about the experiences he had, but the ultimate goal is feel one with God. And we know that we are one with God through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, where the Spirit of God places us in union with Christ and also in union with one another. So we, as one body, are one with God. As Jesus prayed, we're one with Him, we're one with the Father, we're all one. That, of course, is accomplished not through meditation but by faith.

• Tom: Right, right. Larry, I want to underscore one other thing. I absolutely appreciate the way you've laid this out. But here's my concern for the idea of union. Now, you've defined that, in my view, biblically. But here's where I think it goes awry, because union, according to Eastern mysticism, is you basically not just become one with God, you become God - that the union is no different. It's like, you know, as they say, "Just as a drop of water goes into the ocean, it becomes the ocean," that's not the idea of biblical union with Christ. And we've seen that within ministries that have promoted that idea of union with God. It takes it way beyond what the Scriptures teach.

• Larry: That's true, and the point is, I think, that people discuss within the area of alternative spirituality: What is the essence of the human mind?, for example. Is it light or is it chemical? Most are opting out for the idea that it's light. Light is something that is inherent in all of nature, and because light is inherent in the brain and in nature, then that becomes the transfer point where one then can feel oneness with the universe.

• The Bible, however, teaches not oneness, but twoness. Jesus said that He was from above. He told the Pharisees in John 8 that they were from below. He told them "Where I am going, you cannot come." The whole idea of the Bible is not oneness, but twoness. "In the beginning, God created the heavens (space), the earth (matter)," and in the beginning, time. These were subsequent to God. God has pure spirit - eternal Father, eternal Son, and eternal Holy Spirit [who] existed before time, matter, and space. Contemplative spirituality does not believe that. It believes that God is a part of it all. He's no longer holy. And that's the difference.

• Tom: Yeah, and if that were true, then the God that we believe in - let's say if their view was correct, He'd be evil. Look, we have sin - there's nothing that He wouldn't be a part of. But we know that God created everything ex nihilo - out of nothing - because He's not a part of His creation, although Jesus did become a man, but He'll never cease to be the infinite God and the perfect Man. So there's a distinction that's lost and, you know, we've got these swamis and gurus and so on, trying to mix all of this stuff up...

• Larry: Well...

• Tom: Go ahead...

• Larry: Well, the idea is if God is in everything as panentheism teaches, then He actually controls nothing...

• Tom: Right! He's part of the problem!

• Larry: Because He's no longer sovereign. He is totally imminent and no longer transcendent. Therefore, when I go to Him, for example, in prayer, to ask Him to help me either to get through a situation, to get out of a situation, or whatever answer He might give me, He can't help me, because He's part of the process.

• Tom: That's right. Well, He's part of the problem, as I said earlier, so...there's no solution, yoga, or anything else.

• Larry: No. Incarnation is really voided at that point. You don't need an incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ in order for redemption from sin because there really is no sin. Only ugliness and groaning and pain. But God is in that with us!

• Tom: Larry, could you give us a chronology? I've so enjoyed reading some of your articles. Could you just give us a chronology of...if you could identify it...you mentioned St. [Anthony], the Desert Fathers. These are Catholic mystics and so on. But where does a chronology come from...Eastern mysticism...and you have to do this briefly, because we don't have a lot of time, but a chronology, timeline, sort of, of how...

• Larry: Well...yeah...

• Tom: ...that entered Christianity.

• Larry: I think I can help you there. 1) It is age-old spirituality. It had a beginning, and I believe it began in the Garden of Eden in a beautiful place called the...and I would ask the question, and this is only a question: When Eve added to the word of God, "...neither touch it, lest you die," God said, "You shall not eat of it lest you die," she added "touch it." Was she adding, then, tradition that she got somewhere to God's command?

• Now, we know also that Babel, was is in the vicinity of the Tigris and Euphrates River in what was ancient Babylon, modern-day Iran/Iraq area. Babylon is synonymous with spirituality that is opposite from Scripture. So that is the point at which I would bring the beginning of it all. It started, really, with Satan in the Garden. What happened then, it flowed out East, you know, to places like China and elsewhere to the East. God called Abraham to leave that kind of spirituality in Genesis 12, and He set Abraham apart as a special person through whom He was going to reveal Himself. This spirituality, then, was in competition not only with Judaism but, after Christ came and the church was established, with the church. The church began to drift in this, and we know this, for example, from Colossians 2, where the Apostle Paul warns the Colossians about this. And it later on came in through, as you mentioned, St. Anthony, who was a wealthy man who decided that the word of Jesus was to get rid of all your wealth. And he went out into the desert to "seek God." That's where the idea of "Desert Fathers" comes from. He created a movement - started a movement - and so many others moved to the desert to "find God." Some of them even worshiped in pagan shrines and contemplated in pagan shrines in order to do business with evil spirits that would come, because they wanted a hand-to-hand combat with evil spirits, to have victory. So, it was a solicitation, really, of spirits.

• This, then, moved on into what we call the "Monastic Movement," which involved not only mysticism but asceticism - denying one's body - which is a prelude, as we saw, purgation, to contemplation, and then illumination and deification. And so, it entered into the monastic movement and then was in Christianity but now has mainstreamed itself into what I would call the evangelical movement through the influence of certain authors and leaders who are encouraging the practice. That's how I would trace it.

• Tom: Yeah. And in that, do you see - you didn't mention their names - but I will! You have Richard Foster, Dallas Willard; you have a very strong contemplative spirituality movement. We could go back to the influence of Catholics, the late Henri Nouwen - so, there's this in the church. And, as you said, we're not talking about just Catholic mystics. We're talking about mysticism and contemplative practices within evangelical Christianity.

• Now, my question here is, is that distinctly different from the desert fathers - from these guys - what you just described, from what they did?

• Larry: Not in my understanding! It's not essentially different. It's essentially the same. Now, there may be appearances on the outside that would perhaps give the impression to those who are enticed by this and perhaps even seduced by this that it's not the same, but no, it is.

• Tony Campolo, in one of his books, makes the statement that "Mysticism is a part of all religious traditions," whether it be Judaism or Islam or Christianity or any of the Eastern religions. All of these experiences are common, and that is really an ecumenism of spirit, so to speak, where doctrinal distinctives, truth distinctives, are denied because everyone is worshiping at the shrine of the common experience.

• Tom: Now, along that line - and you mentioned Tony Campolo ( I want to talk about him; we'll probably get to that, the Lord willing, next week), but the idea of some of these practices, they're taught by what's been called Spiritual Directors. What's...Larry, what is a spiritual director?

• Larry: Well, in short, a spiritual director is someone who's been there and done that, and that anyone who is novice in the area of contemplative spirituality would come alongside a spiritual director in order to receive counsel, advice, on how to meditate, how to approach this; perhaps there would be maturity there, where maybe things would happen in the course of meditation that would be upsetting that then this novice, or one who is new, could go to the director and receive comfort and so forth.

• So, the whole process is called Spiritual Formation, and the idea is that the contemplative will attempt to form his life after someone or something. Now, we know in scripture that we're to be conformed to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit is active within us to bring that conformity to pass. It's by grace and not by works. And I think that's the big thing we have to understand here is the approach of contemplative spirituality is one of works: you have to practice certain spiritual disciplines, you have to do certain things, in order to attain the form of godliness, whereas in Christianity, it comes from above. And what is involved - yes, there's Bible reading, there's prayer, there's fellowship with other believers, and those things that are involved in conforming one to the Lord Jesus Christ, but the ultimate confirmation, or conformation, comes from above, from the Lord himself - He brings it to us "down." We don't get there by going from below to above. He comes from above to below to bring it to us.

• Tom: Larry, I can remember years ago dealing with this, and it became quite controversial. For example Karen Mains, very popular in Canada - she and her husband - they got into this big time, and they looked for spiritual directors, and they turned to ...where're you going to turn? You're going to turn to Catholic nuns or priests! Not just the Thomas Merton influence, but you have Renovaré...

• Larry: Right.

• Tom: ...you look at some of their board of directors: you have Catholic priests, practicing mystics...but then it also touches upon psychology. You have Jungian priests who introduce this stuff. It's a combination of things, and out of that, we're going to find - or we're encouraged by some - to find somebody who's going to lead us closer to God through these methods and techniques and so on? It's outrageous from a biblical perspective, but here it is! We're up to our eyebrows in this in many places within evangelical Christianity.

• Larry: It's all about seeking "the presence," you see, of God, because the idea is that through meditation, it can come first through "experiencing the presence of God." But we know that the Lord Jesus Christ has promised to be present with us always, even until the end of the age. The book of Hebrews tells us that the Lord will never leave us nor forsake us. So the question that I have for anyone who would think that they could contemplate themselves into the presence of God, why do you contemplate when He's already present with us and in us?

• Tom: Right. And as we've mentioned from the beginning: Larry, you laid it out for us that it started in the Garden of Eden. Actually, I would even say it started in heaven - Lucifer: "I will be as the Most High." Because the objective here is to recognize that we're gods, or that we're becoming gods...

• Larry: Exactly.

• Tom: That lie runs throughout Scripture. However, we're out of time for this session, but to encourage our listeners, you have presented some stuff. I want to go back to some of the things that you talked about in this country, isolationism through Quakers - there's some fascinating stuff, folks! So my encouragement is to join us next week, and, Larry, thanks so much. This has been just a wonderful source of information for me and I'm sure for most of our listeners. So, thank you, Larry!

• Larry: Yes, it's been a blessing to me, Tom.

• Gary: You've been listening to Search the Scriptures 24/7 featuring T.A. McMahon, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. We offer a wide variety of resources to help you in your study of God's Word. For a complete list of materials and a free subscription to our monthly newsletter, contact us at PO Box 7019, Bend, Oregon 977098; call us at 800-937-6638; or visit our website at thebereancall.org. I'm Gary Carmichael. Thanks for joining us, and we hope you can be here again next week! Until then, we encourage you to search the Scriptures 24/7.

Joshua 1:8, Meditate On Scripture

• Just say no to all these and more;• Spiritual Formation, Monastic Movement,"

mysticism, asceticism, denying one's body, purgation, contemplation, illumination and deification, mysticism and contemplative practices. Eastern religions, isolationism

• As well as whatever the devil sends new tomorrow.

• How would you like to have a promise like that?

• John 14:13 "Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

Let's read Joshua 2

Joshua 2:1, Sent 2 Spies

• NAU Joshua 2:1 Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, "Go, view the land, especially Jericho." So they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lodged there.

• Had he learned a lesson about selecting a committee? 2 not 12.

• What military info did they gather?• It looks like their mission was more as witnesses

than spies. They got Rahab saved.

Joshua 2:1, Rahab The

Harlot?

• "Page 62 and 63. Biblical archaeology review September October 2013 volume 39 number five

Joshua 2:1, Rahab The Harlot?

• Biblical Archaeological Review, Page 63, by Anthony J. Frendo• DLK notes that it’s “harlot” in both Heb. and Grk

Joshua 2:1, Rahab The Harlot?• “…It is true that the text identifies Rahab as a harlot, and a

prostitute but she actually comes across more as a landlady or innkeeper than a prostitute. And the first century CE Jewish historian Josephus tells us that Rahab kept an inn.… Was she in innkeeper or a prostitute? Or perhaps both? The consonants that make up the word "prostitute" in Hebrew are ZNH which happen to be identical to the consonants of the Hebrew word for a female person who… gives food and provisions. And indeed, the biblical text does not make or imply any negative comments regarding Rahab's profession. Josephus’ information that Rahab kept and it could well be an old tradition, although this does not necessarily negate the fact that she could also have been a prostitute. Josephus may have preserved the innkeeper tradition in conjunction with the folk memory of a local group who have been spared by the incoming Israelites…” Page 62 and 63. Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 2013, volume 39 number 5

Joshua 2:1, by Dr. EliThe story of “Rahav the harlot”

• “…Unlike Joshua, who didn't trust God’s promise of the land to him and his people, it was Rahav - who the sage Rashi suggested was not actually a harlot as she is often understood to have been, but rather an innkeeper - who trusted God with a full heart. Rahav knew exactly how to speak the two spies, in their language, about the miracles God had enacted for them at the Red Sea, making clear to them the sincerity of her intentions and her belief in the one true God….The character of Rahav teaches us that first impressions can be fleeting; when you judge a person merely by their occupation and not upon their actions and merits, you can be severely misled. For that reason we should all try to open our minds and hearts up as wide as Rahav’s, be accepting of others, less judgmental and more tolerant. Then, perhaps, we’ll have greater perspective and be able to do good for ourselves and our families, just as Rahav did!…”

• For more information about Biblical Hebrew visit- www.eteacherbiblical.com

Joshua 2:1, Rahab The Harlot?

• NAU Joshua 2:1 Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, "Go, view the land, especially Jericho." So they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lodged there.

• NAU Hebrews 11:31 By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace.

• NAU James 2:25 In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

Joshua 2:3, God Is Sovereign It May Look To Us Worse Before Better

• NAU Joshua 2:3 And the king of Jericho sent word to Rahab, saying, "Bring out the men who have come to you…

• An old Persian proverb says: "Trust in God, but tie your camel."

• An old farmer said, “Pray for a good crop of corn, but have a hoe in your hand when you say amen.”

• What we see as disaster is God working out His plan, surrender yourself to His sovereignty. Do you trust Him completely? God works it all out for good (Rom 8:28, Acts 27, 1 Kings 17:12).

Joshua 2:3, God Is Sovereign It May Look To Us Worse Before Better

• From Ruth: A Loyal Love Story, By Brian Bill, “The only survivor of a shipwreck washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He cried out to God to save him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but he only got depressed. He eventually was able to build a small hut and put his only possessions in it. But one day, after hunting for some food, he came back to his hut to find that it had gone up in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky. He was devastated. Early the next day a ship drew near the island and rescued him. He couldn't believe it. When he came on board he said to the crew,

• "How did you know I was here?" To which they replied, "We saw your smoke signal.””

Joshua 2:4, Sandy Hook Shooting: Teacher Lied To Shooter…

• Victoria Soto, a first-grade teacher at Sandy Hook elementary school has been hailed a hero after reportedly hiding her pupils in cabinets, saving all of their lives. The 27-year-old then faced the shooter, Adam Lanza, and told him all of her pupils were in the gym. Lanza turned the gun on the teacher and shot her dead. www.guardian.co.uk

• Joshua 2:4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, "Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. Exodus 1:17-21 But the midwives feared God…

• Jeremiah 38:24-27 1 Samuel 19:17, 20:29, 21:2 Rev 21:8

1 Peter 2:12, Civil Disobedience• NAU 1 Peter 2:12 Keep your behavior excellent among the

Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. 13 Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, 14 or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. 15 For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. 16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. 17 Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

1 Peter 2:12, Civil Disobedience

• 1 Peter 2:12-17• Exodus 1:17-21• Joshua 2, Rahab• 1 Samuel 14:45, saved Jonathan from death• 1 Kings 18, Obadiah hid God’s prophets• 2 Kings, Joash was hidden• Daniel 3, 6• Acts 4:19–20, 5:29• Revelation 13:15

"When is civil disobedience allowed for a Christian?” GotQuestions.org

• Question: "When is civil disobedience allowed for a Christian?"• Answer: The emperor of Rome from AD 54 to 68 was Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, also known simply as

Nero. The emperor was not known for being a godly person and engaged in a variety of illicit acts, homosexual marriage being among them. In AD 64 the great Roman fire occurred, with Nero himself being suspected of arson. In his writings, the Roman senator and historian Tacitus recorded, “To get rid of the report [that he had started the fire], Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace” (Annals, XV).

• It was during the reign of Nero that the apostle Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans. While one might expect him to encourage the Christians in Rome to rise up against their oppressive ruler, in the chapter 13, we find this instead:

• “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor” (Romans 13:1–7).

• Even under the reign of a ruthless and godless emperor, Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, tells his readers to be in subjection to the government. Moreover, he states that no authority exists other than that established by God, and that rulers are serving God in their political office.

• Peter writes nearly the same thing in one of this two New Testament letters: “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king” (1 Peter 2:13–17).

• Both Paul’s and Peter’s teachings have led to quite a few questions from Christians where civil disobedience is concerned. Do Paul and Peter mean that Christians are always to submit to whatever the government commands, no matter what is asked of them?

• A Brief Look at the Various Views of Civil Disobedience• There are at least three general positions on the matter of civil disobedience. The anarchist view says that a person can

choose to disobey the government whenever he likes and whenever he feels he is personally justified in doing so. Such a stance has no biblical support whatsoever, as evidenced in the writings of Paul in Romans 13.

• The extremist patriot says that a person should always follow and obey his country, no matter what the command. As will be shown in a moment, this view also does not have biblical support. Moreover, it is not supported in the history of nations. For example, during the Nuremberg trials, the attorneys for the Nazi war criminals attempted to use the defense that their clients were only following the direct orders of the government and therefore could not be held responsible for their actions. However, one of the judges dismissed their argument with the simple question: “But gentlemen, is there not a law above our laws?”

• The position the Scriptures uphold is one of biblical submission, with a Christian being allowed to act in civil disobedience to the government if it commands evil, such that it requires a Christian to act in a manner that is contrary to the clear teachings and requirements of God’s Word.

• Civil Disobedience—Examples in Scripture• In Exodus 1, the Egyptian Pharaoh gave the clear command to two Hebrew midwives that they were to kill all male

Jewish babies. An extreme patriot would have carried out the government’s order, yet the Bible says the midwives disobeyed Pharaoh and “feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live” (Exodus 1:17). The Bible goes on to say the midwives lied to Pharaoh about why they were letting the children live; yet even though they lied and disobeyed their government, “God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and became very mighty. Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them” (Exodus 1:20–21).

• In Joshua 2, Rahab directly disobeyed a command from the king of Jericho to produce the Israelite spies who had entered the city to gain intelligence for battle. Instead, she let them down via a rope so they could escape. Even though Rahab had received a clear order from the top government official, she resisted the command and was redeemed from the city’s destruction when Joshua and the Israeli army destroyed it.

• The book of 1 Samuel records a command given by King Saul during a military campaign that no one could eat until Saul had won his battle with the Philistines. However, Saul’s son Jonathan, who had not heard the order, ate honey to refresh himself from the hard battle the army had waged. When Saul found out about it, he ordered his son to die. However, the people resisted Saul and his command and saved Jonathan from being put to death (1 Samuel 14:45).

• Another example of civil disobedience in keeping with biblical submission is found in 1 Kings 18. That chapter briefly introduces a man named Obadiah who “feared the Lord greatly.” When the queen Jezebel was killing God’s prophets, Obadiah took a hundred of them and hid them from her so they could live. Such an act was in clear defiance of the ruling authority’s wishes.

• In 2 Kings, the only apparently approved revolt against a reigning government official is recorded. Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, began to destroy the royal offspring of the house of Judah. However, Joash the son of Ahaziah was taken by the king’s daughter and hidden from Athaliah so that the bloodline would be preserved. Six years later, Jehoiada gathered men around him, declared Joash to be king, and put Athaliah to death.

• Daniel records a number of civil disobedience examples. The first is found in chapter 3 where Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to bow down to the golden idol in disobedience to King Nebuchadnezzar’s command. The second is in chapter 6 where Daniel defies King Darius’ decree to not pray to anyone other than the king. In both cases, God rescued His people from the death penalty that was imposed, signaling His approval of their actions.

• In the New Testament, the book of Acts records the civil disobedience of Peter and John towards the authorities that were in power at the time. After Peter healed a man born lame, Peter and John were arrested for preaching about Jesus and put in jail. The religious authorities were determined to stop them from teaching about Jesus; however, Peter said, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19–20). Later, the rulers confronted the apostles again and reminded them of their command to not teach about Jesus, but Peter responded, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

• One last example of civil disobedience is found in the book of Revelation where the Antichrist commands all those who are alive during the end times to worship an image of himself. But the apostle John, who wrote Revelation, states that those who become Christians at the time will disobey the Antichrist and his government and refuse to worship the image (Revelation 13:15) just as Daniel’s companions violated Nebuchadnezzar’s decree to worship his idol.

• Civil Disobedience—Conclusion• What conclusions can be drawn from the above biblical examples? The guidelines for a Christian’s civil disobedience can

be summed as follows:

• • Christians should resist a government that commands or compels evil and should work nonviolently within the laws of the land to change a government that permits evil.

• • Civil disobedience is permitted when the government’s laws or commands are in direct violation of God’s laws and commands.

• • If a Christian disobeys an evil government, unless he can flee from the government, he should accept that government’s punishment for his actions.

• • Christians are certainly permitted to work to install new government leaders within the laws that have been established.

• Lastly, Christians are commanded to pray for their leaders and for God to intervene in His time to change any ungodly path that they are pursuing: “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity” (1 Timothy 2:1–2).

Joshua 2:6, Hidden In The Flax

• NAU Joshua 2:6 But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them in the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof.

• Mac Dictionary defines;

• flax…noun, a blue-flowered herbaceous plant that is cultivated for its seed (linseed) and for textile fiber made from its stalks….

Joshua 2:18A Scarlet Thread Of Salvation

• NAU Joshua 2:18 unless, when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father's household.

• There is a scarlet thread running from Gen. 3 to the cross.• NAU Matthew 1:3 Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by

Tamar…• NAU Matthew 1:5 Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab,

Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse.

• NAU Matthew 1:6 …David the king…was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba who had been the wife of Uriah.

Joshua 2:11, Courage• Joshua 2:11 "When we heard it, our hearts melted and

no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.

• 1st use of “courage”• Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is

the little voice at the end of the day that says, I'll try again tomorrow. Author Unknown

• If suffering went out of life, courage, tenderness, pity, faith, patience and love in its divinity would go out of life too. Father Andrew

Joshua 2:11, Courage

• Courage comes and goes. Hold on for the next supply. Thomas Merton

• Mark 15:43 Joseph of Arimathea came, a prominent member of the Council, who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God; and he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus.

• NKJ Mark 15:43 …coming and taking courage…• ESV Mark 15:43 …took courage…

So, in conclusion;

THE END

Joshua 1:3• Every place upon which the sole of your foot will tread I have given to

you.• Joshua 1:3• Jerusalem Inspiration• At the start of the book of the Prophets, God reiterates the promise he

originally made to Moses about the nation of Israel inheriting the land of Israel. The condition is that the Jews must travel throughout the land and conquer it from the idolatrous nations. Today's verse is a clear message that Jerusalem and the land of Israel are only guaranteed if the Jewish nation appreciates their value and seeks it out.

• Jerusalem Daily Photo• Today's picture taken by Rebecca Kowalsky depicts the steps along the side

of the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. Today, tourists can taken a Ramparts Walk whereby they walk on most of the ancient city’s walls ascending at Jaffa Gate and descending at the New Gate, Herod’s Gate or the Lion’s Gate.

JOSHUA 1:8

• This Book of the Torah shall not depart from you mouth; rather you shall contemplate it day and night in order that you observe to do according to all that is written in it, for then you will make your way successful.

• JOSHUA (1:8)

Joshua 1:8• This Book of the Torah shall not depart from you mouth; rather you shall

contemplate it day and night in order that you observe to do according to all that is written in it, for then you will make your way successful.

• Joshua 1:8• Jerusalem Inspiration• When a girl turns 12 years old and a boy turns 13 they are called Bat or Bar

Mitzvah. The practical significance is that they are now obligated to perform 'mitzvot', or commands from God. The primary command is to always further the study of the Torahin order to come closer to God.

• Jerusalem Daily Photo• Today's picture taken by Howie Mischel depicts a Bar Mitzvah procession

making its way through the Old City of Jerusalem. The Bar Mitzvah, celebrated by Jewish adolescents at the age of 13, represents the transformation from the life of a child to becoming a Jewish adult. It is at this stage that Jewish youth accept upon themselves to fulfill the commands of God.

Joshua 2:1-24 • Trust, But Still Do Your Homework, This Day's Thought thisdaysthought@theranch.org via theranch.ccsend.com • • By Steven Simala Grant

Joshua 2:1-24 • • • There is an old Persian proverb, which says: "Trust in God, but tie your camel." It acknowledges the tension we often come up against when we talk about trust - what is God's part and what is our part? When does trust mean that we do nothing except let go and sit and wait for God? When does trust mean that we get active and make some plans and start to do things and allow God to empower and guide while we are in motion? I can tell

convincing stories from both perspectives: "Let Go": A tourist came too close to the edge of the Grand Canyon, lost his footing and plunged over the side, clawing and scratching to save himself. After he went out of sight and just before he fell into space, he encountered a scrubby bush which he desperately grabbed with both hands. Filled with terror, he called out toward heaven, "Is there anyone up there?" A calm, powerful voice came out of the sky, "Yes, there is." The tourist pleaded, "Can you help me? Can you help me?" The calm voice replied, "Yes, I probably can. What is your problem?" "I fell over the cliff and am dangling in space holding to a bush that is about to let go. Please help me." "The voice from above said, "I'll try. Do you believe?" "Yes, yes, I believe."' "Do you have faith?" "Yes, yes. I have strong faith." The calm voice said, "Well, in that case, simply let loose of the bush and everything will turn out fine." There was a tense pause, then the tourist yelled, "Is there anyone else up there?" "Get Going": "A church member was having trouble with the concept of tithing. One day he revealed his doubts to his minister: "Pastor, I just don't see how I can give 10 percent of my income to the church when I can't even keep on top of our bills."

• The pastor replied, "John, if I promise to make up the difference in your bills if you should fall short, do you think you could try tithing for just one month?"

• After a moment's pause, John responded, "Sure, if you promise to make up any shortage, I guess I could try tithing for one month."

• "Now, what do you think of that," mused the pastor. "You say you'd be willing to put your trust in a mere man like myself' who possesses so little materially, but you couldn't trust your Heavenly Father who owns the whole universe!" The next Sunday, John gave his tithe, and has been doing so faithfully ever since.

• • In the first story, trust meant letting go. In the second, it meant doing something and trusting God to take care of the rest. On the one hand, you've heard the saying, "You can't steer a boat that isn't moving." On the other hand, "Let go and Let God." Do you see the tension? Does trusting mean that we do nothing and wait on God, or does it mean that we seek God actively as we get moving along?• • Last week we looked at Joshua 1, and we recognized God's promises of Victory and of His Presence with us. We saw that as we obey, and as we meditate on God's Word, we come to experience the fulfillment of those promises. I see so much of the theme of trust in Joshua - last week discovering that the basis of our trust is in the promise of God's presence and victory. That is what we rest on, that is why we let go and let God be in Control, that

is the source of our strength and courage. This week, as we look at chapter 2, we see that letting go and letting God be in control does NOT mean that we sit around and do nothing, but rather that we act on the promises of God, that we live them out - in fact I could go further and say that we only really experience the depth of God's promises - in dangerous, uncomfortable, unsafe situations.• • Let's read the story of Joshua 2.•

1. Living the Promises:

• I love what we see happening in this story. In the previous chapter, God has promised Joshua and the Israelites the land - He promised them victory "everywhere you set your foot." (1:3). So now, in this next chapter, Joshua gets busy. He secretly sends a couple of people to spy out the land, and especially the city of Jericho. Let's pause there for a second - my Bible doesn't say anything about God telling Joshua to send in the spies. And if you remember back to Moses time, he sent in some spies and it all didn't turn out to well. Didn't God just promise to give Joshua the whole land? - then why the need to send in the spies? Does that display a lack of trust on Joshua's part - a sort of taking-matters-into-his-own-hands kind of thing? Why didn't he just trust God, rest on the promises, and march across the river and claim the land? The questions become even more relevant if we sneak a peak ahead into chapters 5-6, where we have the story of the fall of Jericho. Remember how the city falls into the hands of the Israelites? They take the city simply by marching around it for seven days, and then God miraculously tears down the walls at the shout (yes, simply the shout) of the Israelite army. God had a plan for the fall of Jericho, He knew how it was going to happen. So why bother with this whole spy thing? They obviously weren't going to need detailed reconnaissance on the military readiness of the people of Jericho. Why send the spies if God was going to do a miracle? Even worse, isn't this whole spy thing contrary to the very nature of what it means to trust God - isn't it an example of Joshua acting in his strength rather than in God's?

• To answer those questions, we need to know what the response of God was to Joshua's actions. Was Joshua rebuked? Punished for not believing? Chastised for not simply trusting? No, not at all. In fact, and this is fascinating, God says nothing in this chapter. He has lots to say in chapter 1, and more to say in chapter 3 and 4 and 5 and 6. In all those places, we read "And the Lord said to Joshua..."; but here it just says "Joshua secretly sent two spies..." Obviously God was not upset at Joshua, or there definitely would have been consequences (as we will see in chapter 7). And in fact, there is a wonderful result to this spy story - meeting Rahab and having her become a celebrated woman of faith - seeing all her family saved. So obviously God blessed Joshua's actions, obviously God worked through Joshua's actions, even though God had a different plan for taking the city.

• Here is the lesson I see here for you and me. Sometimes it is ok for us to get busy and do the things that make the most sense. Let me repeat that: sometimes it is ok for us to get busy and do the things that make the most sense. I have known people who wanted to walk with God and be so dependent on Him that they would literally wake up in the morning and pray about which pair of socks to put on. Honestly! They wanted to be obedient to God, they wanted God to be in control, and so would even pray about things like that and attempt to discern "God's Will" for which pair of socks to put on.

• I believe that God gave us the ability to make decisions. We often take that and run with it and try to make all the decisions ourselves, without involving God in our daily lives, and that is wrong. But it is also wrong to never make decisions. That leads to disobedience: for example, if God tells us to go one direction, and we sit around waiting for Him to tell us whether to walk or run or take a bus, and end up staying in the same place, we have disobeyed God's call to go. Sometimes all He tells us is to go, and He leaves the method of travel up to us to decide. Here is what I am trying to say: trusting God means BOTH that we wait on Him for guidance and direction and leadership - AND it also means that we get going in the direction He points us in. Let me give you an example: whenever I sit down at my computer to work on a sermon, I first read the Scripture passage again - even if I am just coming back from a 15 minute break. Then I pray. I ask God to speak to me, to show me what He wants to reveal to me and to us through His Word. Sometimes I sit there in prayer waiting for all these great revelations to come flooding into my mind. But most of the time that doesn't happen! (Some of you are agreeing a little too quickly there...). Most of the time, the ideas and revelations start to flow as I write. See the process? God speaks as I move, as I act. He often just brings it point by point. So you see that trusting in God means waiting for His direction, and then starting to head in that direction trusting Him for the power and abilities to get there.

• That is what I see here in Joshua 2. Even though God had a different plan for taking Jericho, Joshua was not wrong in sending in the spies. That wasn't an indication of a lack of trust or a lack of faith - it was the right thing to do! God surprised them with a different ending, but God also honored Joshua for doing the smart thing by sending in the spies to get a handle on what was happening in Jericho at that time. Sometimes in life we get stuck. We get in a rut, we feel like we're spinning our wheels, we're discouraged and down and going nowhere. Maybe that is how you feel about your life today - like you are kind of stuck. If so, think about this - are you stuck because you don't know where to go, or are you stuck because you do know where to go but are waiting for something else to happen before heading that direction? If you don't know where to go, then you need to pray and seek God for guidance, and wait - and let go - and listen. And on the other hand, if you are stuck but you do know which way you should be headed, get going. Make the necessary decisions, stop waiting for each piece of the puzzle to fall into place before taking the first step, and just get moving. God will lead.

• The Israelites had been stuck at this place before, 40 years earlier. They knew which way to go under Moses, but got scared and retreated. This time around, they still know which way to go (and by the way, it is the same direction...), but this time they get a little extra encouragement from the report of the spies: "The Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the people are melting in fear because of us." (vs. 24). That was the added bit of confidence that they needed.

• And maybe that is the added bit of encouragement that you need today. God has it under control. He knows the hurdles and the pitfalls and the obstacles, and He is bigger than all of them. If you are going in the direction He wants you to go in, trust Him to take care of the journey. You will find Him sufficient; You will find Him abundantly able to meet the needs along the road.

• That is the big message I see in this passage: trusting God means waiting on Him for direction, AND it also means using the minds and gifts that He has given us to head in that direction. As long as we head in that direction in His strength and not in our own, as long as we continue to trust Him along the way and even let Him make mid-course corrections, we can be confident that we are trusting Him and walking in His power and not our own.

• There is one other thing I want to point out in this passage.• • 2. God Goes Ahead of Us•

Joshua does the smart thing and sends the spies in. They go to "the house of a prostitute," most likely because that was a place where foreigners wouldn't arise a lot of suspicion and where they would be able to get a handle on what the people were thinking. What they find there is miraculous...•

Somehow, word gets to the king and he sends in the henchmen. So much for "secret, undercover agents..." But here is where the story gets interesting - Rahab the prostitute hides them, lies for them, sends the king's men off on a wild goose chase, protects them, gives them the information they need, and then provides their escape route. And in return, she and her family have their lives spared and Rahab takes a prominent place in the history of Israel and in Christianity because of her faith.

• Here is what this tells me: God goes ahead of us. And not only does He go ahead of us, preparing the way, preparing the hearts of people, revealing His fame and His glory - but He goes ahead of us and we find Him in strange and unexpected places. These spies found God at work in a brothel, in the faith of a prostitute.

• I apply this to sharing our faith. We often look at the prospect of sharing our faith with some trepidation - like we are making a furtive foray into enemy territory, crossing the lines into the "unknown," taking a big risk. We head into those situations feeling like it is our job to take God to people who don't know Him. There is this big, dark land, and we have the Light and we must take it into this dangerous place. This spy story reminds us that God is already there ahead of us. We aren't going in carrying Him along with us, as if He wasn't there already. On the contrary, we take opportunities to share our faith with the realization that the Holy Spirit is already there, already working, already prodding and pursuing. We are wisest and most effective when we recognize that God is there already, and encourage what He is doing in people's lives. Sharing our faith isn't only about bringing people to salvation - that is the final step in the evangelism process (though of course not the final step in that person's growth in faith...). There are lots of steps before that, lots of contacts and words and deeds and expressions of love, and lots of things that God is doing to reveal Himself and draw people to Himself.

• God is there ahead of us, and often we'll find Him in unexpected places. Be open to those! Look for those opportunities to join God at work in establishing His Kingdom. And take the opportunities He provides.

• • Let me tell you a story. About a month ago, Joanne (my wife) was taking our son for a walk. She ran into a couple of elderly ladies who were also out for a walk. They said hello to Thomas, and then commented to Joanne that he sure looked like a healthy little boy. Joanne thanked them, and then smiled and said, "actually, he's been fairly sick," and she told them a bit about Thomas' struggles. They chatted a bit, and then one of these ladies

asked, "Would it be ok if we prayed for your son?" It turned out that these ladies were part of McKernan Baptist Church, and there on the sidewalk they ministered to both Joanne and Thomas.•

See how we find God in unexpected places? Joanne was just out for a simple walk, and ended up being encouraged by two Godly women. And from the other side, I love the faith and courage of these women seizing the opportunity to share their faith with a mom they had just bumped into who obviously had a need. God goes ahead of us, He prepares the way, He has all sorts of things prepared for us, as Ephesians 2:10 reminds us: "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

• • Matthew Henry, a famous Bible commentator, wrote: "Faith in God's promise ought not to supersede but encourage our diligence in the use of proper means. Joshua is sure he has God with him, and yet sends men before him. We do not trust God, but tempt him, if our expectations slacken our endeavors."•

Where has God been calling you to go - what has He been telling you that you need to be obedient to? If you are feeling stuck, if you are uncertain about which direction to head or how to get started, then I want to first encourage you with the fact that God goes ahead of you - He has prepared the road and He knows where the journey is going to take you. And He knows what you need to get started.•

The promise of God is that He has prepared for us a great Kingdom, which He desires us to experience in this life as well as in the next. It is a Kingdom of joy, of freedom, and of power. God has invited us to experience this Kingdom through His Spirit. I encourage you to take some steps, to do the things that make sense, in pursuing a more full experience of God's Kingdom in your life, so that you can also see God's Kingdom come to those around you.

Joshua 2:1, The story of “Rahav the harlot”• Hebrews 11:31 By faith Rahab the harlot… James 2:25 In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot…. DLK notes that it’s “harlot” in both Heb. and Grk

• The story of RahavIn the Babylonian Talmud there's a description of the most four beautiful women in the history of the world. One the women mentioned, whose name has no specific Jewish or Israeli context in the Hebrew Bible is Rahav- רחב. The other three, by the way, are Esther, Abigail and Sarah. It is assumed that at some point she converted became Jewish like other Biblical women, such as as Boaz’s wife Ruth, Joseph's wifeOsnat and several others. The Babylonian Talmud tells us that Rahav eventually married Joshua and that she had ten famous descendants, one of whom is the famous prophet, Jeremiah.

• What was it about Rahav that made the sages of Israel sing her praises so highly? Today we shall examine some important verses that shed light on her character. Let's start with her meeting with the two spies in Jericho, as written:• "Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and [a]lodged there. It was told the king of Jericho, saying,

“Behold, men from the sons of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land.”(Joshua 2:1-2)•" - - , : . - - - ; - - - - - - הארץ" את )ר לחפ ישראל מבני ילה הל ה הנ באו אנשים ה הנ יריחו)לאמ)ר למלך אמר וי שמה בו שכ וי שמהרחב ו זו)נה אשה בית ב)או וי לכו וי יריחו) ואת הארץ את ראו לכו לאמ)ר חרש לים מרג אנשים השטיםשנים מן ן נו בן יהו)שAע שלח וי

• Unlike Joshua, who didn't trust God’s promise of the land to him and his people, it wasRahav - who the sage Rashi suggested was not actually a harlot as she is often understood to have been, but rather an innkeeper - who trusted God with a full heart.Rahav knew exactly how to speak the two spies, in their language, about the miracles God had enacted for them at the Red Sea, making clear to them the sincerity of her intentions and her belief in the one true God.

• In Joshua chapter two, it seems that while the city slept, Rahav was the only one to figure out that in order to save her family from God’s proposed destruction she had to go undercover and appear as if she was working for both sides, to be a friend unto the spies but still a loyal citizen of the city. When the people of Jericho came to her to inspect the spies, she could have exposed them, delivering the two spies to the wrath of the people. However, by doing so, she would only gain a respect and dignity for few days. Rahav, whose name in Hebrew means ‘wide’, acted differently; she had the two spies swear that they would save her family, and as we can see in Joshua 6, her family was saved, as written:

• "However, Rahab the harlot and her father’s household and all she had, Joshua spared; and she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day, for she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho."(Jos. 6:25)•". - - , - : - - - - - יריחו)" לאת לרג יהו)שAע שלח אשר המלאכים החביאהאת י כ ה הז ו)ם הי עד בקרבישראל ותשב יהו)שAע החיה לה אשר ל כ אביהואת בית ואת ו)נה הז רחב ואת

• In the New Testament, Rahav is described as a woman that displayed grace and faith. In in the Book of Matthew 1:5 she is described as the mother of Boaz, Ruth’s husband and David's great grandmother. Another beautiful passage about Rahavappears here-• "By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace."(Hebrews 11:31)

•" בשלו)ם׃" אל־ביתה לים את־המרג י־אספה כ עם־הסו)ררים ו)נה הז רחב אבדה ל)א נה באמו• The character of Rahav teaches us that first impressions can be fleeting; when you judge a person merely by their occupation and not upon their actions and merits, you can be severely misled. For that reason we should all try to open our minds and hearts up as

wide as Rahav’s, be accepting of others, less judgmental and more tolerant. Then, perhaps, we’ll have greater perspective and be able to do good for ourselves and our families, just as Rahav did!• Wishing you a blessed week, dear friends,• Eli• For more information about Biblical Hebrew visit- www.eteacherbiblical.com• Main phrases of the post + transcription + translation • English• Transliteration• Hebrew• Faith• 'ĕmûnāh

נה• אמו• Rahav• rāchāv

רחב•• Spies• məraggəlîm

לים• מרג• She hid• Hechbî'āh

החביאה•• Jericho• yərîchô

יריחו)•• Two• šənayim

שנים•• Harlot• zônāh

זו)נה••

2 Samuel 13:1 Joshua 2:14, Tomb of Absalom

• And it will be when God gives us the Land that we will do kindness and truth with you.• Joshua 2:14• Jerusalem Inspiration• In this increasingly insecure and scary world, “kindness and truth” are increasingly rare.

The Hebrew word for truth, אמת/eh-MET contains a deep lesson that can serve as our moral compass. The word is comprised of three Hebrew letters and the first letter א/ Alef, the “One” stands for the Almighty. Remove the initial letter Alef and all that remains is מת / met, meaning death. Without God there can be no truth. In its place only death and destruction remain.

• Past and Present - A Tour of the Tombs of Absalom and Zechariah• Join this visually descriptive tour of the Tombs of Absalom and Zechariah in Jerusalem.

Includes historical photographs, as well as modern scenes, giving the viewer a wonderful education in this side of Jerusalem's Kidron Valley.

• Jerusalem Photo Trivia• Do you know whose tomb is shown in today's photo by Noam Chen? Send me an email

with your answer or post it on Facebook!

Matthew 25:32-40 Joshua 2:3, Sheep And Goat And Judgment

• Regarding; “The “sheep”, which are pro-Jewish, are clearly stated to be the “righteous” ones. Will they be saved because they are pro-Jewish? This cannot be true because that would make their salvation be based on their works, and not the work of God. This passage is an example of James 2:14-26, .. refuse to do the commands of the Antichrist to destroy the Jews. …They will be allowed to enter into the Messianic Kingdom because they are saved Gentiles,…”

• The saved Gentile sheep remind me of Rahab refusing the rulers edict, and instead protecting the Jews.

• NAU Joshua 2:3 And the king of Jericho sent word to Rahab, saying, "Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land." 4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, "Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from.

The Seventy-Five Day Interval, Dr. Dr. Daniel E. Woodhead, Bema Seat, Sheep And Goat And

Judgment, • The Seventy-Five Day Interval• The Millennium (also called the Theocratic Kingdom, or the Messianic Kingdom) does not start right away at the close of

the Great Tribulation. Scripture tells us that the duration of the first half of the Great Tribulation is 1,260 days (3 ½ years). This is the length of the time between two significant events. They are the signing of the covenant with Israel by the Antichrist, initiating the Great Tribulation, and the Abomination of Desolation being set up in the Temple, which is the mid point event. Scripture also tells us that the last half of the Tribulation will be 1,260 days counting from the Abomination of Desolation to the demise of the Antichrist. These two sets of 3 ½ years each equal a total of seven years. When comparing several Scripture passages, that reference the Great Tribulation’s duration, another specific time interval is noted. This is a seventy-five day interval at the end of the Great Tribulation and prior to the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom. The interval is described in Daniel, and the differences in numbers are intentional, they are not scribal error:

• Daniel 12:11-12 “11And from the time that the continual burnt-offering shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand and two hundred and ninety days [1290]. 12Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days [1335].” (KJV, brackets added)

• The Daniel passage gives us two additional figures. The first is 1,290 days, or an additional thirty days, during which time the Abomination of Desolation will remain in the Temple before it is removed. The second figure is 1,335 days, which is another 45 days beyond the 1,290 and 75 days beyond the 1,260 days. A special blessing is pronounced upon those who survive to the 1,335th day. The blessing is, for those who survive, to be able to enter into the Messianic Kingdom. Many will not make it that far, even though they made it to the end of the Tribulation. The events and the time intervals are illustrated on the following chart:

• 75 Day Interval Chart by Daniel Woodhead• 75 Day Interval Chart by Daniel Woodhead• There are nine events that occur during this 75-day period are:

• The removal of the Abomination of Desolation from the Temple.• The final destination of the Antichrist.• The final destination of the False Prophet.• The binding of Satan.• The judgment of the Gentiles.• The resurrection of the Old Testament Saints.• The resurrection of the Tribulation Saints.• The Marriage Feast of the Lamb (this is the formal start of the Millennium)• 1. The Removal of the Abomination of Desolation• The pivotal event, which signals the mid-point of the Great Tribulation, is the Antichrist’s takeover of the Jewish Temple.

He breaks his covenant with the Jews, and declares himself “The Almighty God” (II Thessalonians 2:4). He also begins a serious persecution of the Jews, which will last for 1,260 days. The False Prophet sets up an inanimate image of the Antichrist in the Temple and Satan, through the False Prophet, causes it to become alive. The Antichrist is in control of the world for those 1,260 days and then he will be killed. The image stays in the Temple for additional thirty days.

• Daniel 12:11

• “11And from the time that the continual burnt-offering shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand and two hundred and ninety days.” (KJV)

• The desecration of the Jewish Temple continues an additional thirty days beyond the end of the Great Tribulation. It will then be destroyed, which brings the Abomination of Desolation to an end. It is not clear why God allows the Abomination of Desolation to remain in the Temple for 30 days after the Great Tribulation ends.

• 2. The Judgment of the Gentiles• The Olivet Discourse of Jesus to His inner circle of Peter, James, John, and Andrew comes to an end with the Judgment of

the Gentiles. Even though a significant number of Gentiles will be killed during the Great Tribulation (and their armies will be slaughtered in the Campaign of Armageddon) some will make it through alive. They will be gathered together for the purpose of a special judgment.

• There are two passages of Scripture that give the insight into the Judgment of the Gentiles:

• Matthew 25:31-46

• “31When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: 32And before him shall be gathered all nations:33and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth [his] sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. 34Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed [thee]? or thirsty, and gave [thee] drink? 38When saw we thee a stranger, and took [thee] in? or naked, and clothed [thee]? 39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me. 41Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: 42For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: 43I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. 44Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? 45Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did [it] not to one of the least of these, ye did [it] not to me. 46And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” (KJV)

• This passage confirms the timing of the judgment, which will be after the Second Coming of the Messiah, when the Throne of David will be set up as described in verse 31 above.

• The place of the judgment is not given in this passage, but the prophet Joel does discuss it:

• Joel 3:1-3

• “1For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, 2I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will execute judgment upon them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations: 3and they have parted my land, and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.” (KJV, underlining added)

• This judgment that will take place just outside the City of Jerusalem, in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which lies between the city and the Mount of Olives.

• Ancient City of Jerusalem and Valley of Jehosaphat.• Ancient City of Jerusalem and Valley of Jehosaphat.• Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Jerusalem_Modern_Jerusalem.jpg

• Joel also confirms that this judgment is to occur near the time of the restoration of the Nation Israel, which is at the end of the Great Tribulation. All the Gentiles surviving after the war will be gathered into the Valley of Jehoshaphat for the judgment. This is the same place on the east of the Temple Mount next to the Mount of Olives where the final battle took place. The term “Gentiles” is the same as “all nations”. This judgment will be for the purpose of determining their individual final destination of eternal life or eternal hell. Therefore, it is a very serious event. The basis for the judgment will be how they treated the Jews during the Tribulation. The sins cited by Joel include: scattering the Jews in the middle of the Great Tribulation, parting the land during the Campaign of Armageddon, and selling the Jews into slavery (Zechariah 14:1-2).

• Each Gentile will be judged on the basis his or her participation in, or refusal to participate in, these actions. The Lord Jesus gave us the results of the judgment during the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 25:31-46). He identifies the judge, the judgment, and those who are judged in Matthew’s gospel:

• Matthew 25:31-33

• “31When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: 32And before him shall be gathered all nations: 33and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth [his] sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.” (KJV)

• The Judge• Jesus (“Son of man”) is the judge who will sit on a throne in the all His glory in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.

• The Judged• The subjects of the judgment are individuals, and not a judgment of nations (verses 32-33). The Greek word for “nations”

is ethnos, which is Strong’s #1484, and it means “all those who are not Jews”. In other words it means the Gentiles. The word “nations” is the common term for Gentiles used in the Bible. All the Gentiles who survive the Tribulation, and the Campaign of Armageddon, will be gathered into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and will then be separated by the Messiah. There are three specific groups mentioned in this passage: the “sheep” Gentiles, the “goat” Gentiles, and the “brethren”. Some Gentiles are brought to His right-hand side and are called “sheep”, and those Gentiles brought to His left-hand side are called “goats”. Note the positional aspect of the decision, being put to the right or left side of Jesus the Judge. The pro-Jewish Gentiles are known as the “sheep” camp and the anti-Jewish Gentiles are known as the “goat” camp. Matthew also discusses the pro-Jewish sheep camp:

• Matthew 25:34-40

• “34Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed [thee]? or thirsty, and gave [thee] drink? 38When saw we thee a stranger, and took [thee] in? or naked, and clothed [thee]? 39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me.” (KJV)

• “The Sheep” – Gentiles Helping The Jews• Jesus describes those who helped His “brethren”, the Jews, during the Great Tribulation as “sheep”. Remember, the

church had not yet been formed when Christ’s Olivet Discourse was given. Therefore, His usage of the term “brethren” in this context refers to the Jews. These Gentiles will be putting themselves in mortal danger, just as it was during World War II when the Nazis were hunting the Jews and killing those non-Jews who hid or aided them. The Jews will flee into the wilderness without provisions. The pro-Jewish “sheep” will provide them with food, clothing and shelter. They will visit them in prison, and in general show kindness toward them. The result of their judgment is being given permission to enter into the Messianic Kingdom. It is the “sheep” Gentiles who will be involved in the destruction of Babylon (Isaiah 13:1-5). They will be the “resistance fighters” who are instrumental in overthrowing the one-world government that will be headquartered at Babylon.

• Some have tried to interpret the term “brethren” as referring to saints in general, but this makes the passage meaningless. If the “brethren” are saints in general, then who are the “sheep” since they too have eternal life? It would be very confusing to make both the “sheep” and the “brethren” as saints of the same order. From this context alone, it should be very evident that the “brethren” must refer to Jewish people because the saints are the “sheep” and the unsaved are the “goats”. Furthermore, the parallel passage of Joel 3:1-3 makes it certain that these “brethren” are the Jewish people of the Great Tribulation. The term “brethren” here is used in the sense of “brethren in the flesh.” The fact that only Matthew records this segment of the Olivet Discourse also teaches the same truth. Matthew’s gospel was directed at a Jewish audience, and since his is the most “Jewish” of the Gospels, his primary concern has been how the Messiah’s coming will affect the Jewish people.

• The “sheep”, which are pro-Jewish, are clearly stated to be the “righteous” ones. Will they be saved because they are pro-Jewish? This cannot be true because that would make their salvation be based on their works, and not the work of God. This passage is an example of James 2:14-26, that distinguishes between perfecting one’s faith through our works, as compared to one who is basing their salvation only on faith without any works. Because these Gentiles are already believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, they will refuse to do the commands of the Antichrist to destroy the Jews. So, while Jews will undergo a great persecution, these believing Gentiles will do what they can to help the Jews under these conditions. A believer will follow Christ’s commandments, and will not follow the Antichrist. Their works toward the Messiah’s “brethren” will prove their faith. They will be allowed to enter into the Messianic Kingdom because they are saved Gentiles, and they will be the ones to populate the Gentile nations during the Messianic Kingdom (vv.34-40).

• The “Goats” – Gentiles Who Harmed The Jews• On the other hand, the “goats” will be the anti-Jewish Gentiles who, because of their unbelief in Jesus, will join the ranks

of the persecutors under the Antichrist’s authority. They will show their lack of faith by their works. They are the ones who will not be “watching”, “ready” or “laboring”, in violation of the five parables. For this reason they will be left out of the Messianic Kingdom:

• Matthew 25:41-45

• 41Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: 42For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: 43I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. 44Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? 45Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did [it] not to one of the least of these, ye did [it] not to me.” (KJV)

• They will be killed and sent directly to Hell. This judgment is not judging them on works, but whether or not they believed in the Messiah, and sends those who harmed the Jews to Hell.

• 3. The Antichrist’s Final destination•

• Revelation 19:20 makes is quite clear the Antichrist will meet his final demise:

• Revelation 19:20

• “20And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.” (KJV)

• The text states that the Antichrist will be “cast alive” into the Lake of Fire. The Antichrist is killed at the end of the Great Tribulation and while his body will not be buried, his soul will be in Hell (Habakkuk 3:13b; II Thessalonians 2:8; Isaiah14:3-11; 16-21). As armed forces of the Antichrist flee Christ’s slaughter, his body will be trampled under their feet (Isaiah 14:19-21). So if the text states that he will be “cast alive into a lake of fire”, he must come back to life in order for that to occur. There is the Second Resurrection and it only applies to the resurrection of the damned (those who did not accept Christ when they had the opportunity), which like the First Resurrection also comes in stages. Jesus, the second person of the Holy Trinity, is the “first fruits” of the First Resurrection. Interestingly, the Antichrist will be the “first fruits” of the Second Resurrection. The result of his resurrection will end with his eternal destiny in the Lake of Fire.

• 3a. The Lake of Fire• The “lake of fire burning with brimstone” is that which Christ referred as Gehenna, and is also called the Lake of Fire

(Matthew 5:22, 29-30, 10:28, 18:9, 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5). The Greek work for the Lake of Fire is Gehenna, and is named for the Valley of Hinnom just south of Jerusalem. It was at this site that the Jews offered their children to god Molech (II Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31; 19:2-6). In later times it served as a continually burning garbage dump, and therefore provided the imagery that the Bible uses to describe the place of everlasting punishment. The Lake of Fire is where all those who do not believe in Christ will reside forever. The Lake of Fire is where the contents of Hell will be deposited. Hell is a place of a spiritual punishment. The Lake of Fire will be a place of punishment for the resurrected bodies of the unbelievers and their spirits. Being thrown into the Lake of Fire is the Second Death, and is the final destination of the wicked.

• 3b. The False Prophet• According to Revelation 19:20 the False Prophet will have a counterfeit gift of performing miracles for the sole purpose of

deceiving the world so that they worship the Antichrist (beast) and take his mark of 666.

• Revelation 19:20

• “20And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.” (KJV)

• He will be “cast alive” into the Lake of Fire along with the Antichrist. These two members of the “unholy trinity” (the Antichrist masquerading as the counterfeit “son”, and the false prophet masquerading as the counterfeit “holy spirit”) will the only occupants for the first 1,000 years that the Lake of Fire will be operational. What a appropriate destiny for the two men who instituted Hell on earth for seven years!

• 4a. Satan’s Binding• Satan, who masquerades as the counterfeit father in the “unholy trinity”, will be cast into the abyss.

• Revelation 20:1-3

• “1And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 2And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, 3And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.” (KJV)

• Here we see the binding of Satan, who was cherub and of the highest order of celestial beings in Heaven. The one who does the binding is a common angel, who is the lowest order of celestial beings in Heaven. How fitting for Satan who was the highest of the highest rank of celestial beings to be bound by one from the lowest rank! Satan will be bound for 1,000 years, which is the duration of the Millennial Kingdom on earth. He will no longer be free to be the great deceiver of mankind. He will reside in the Abyss. The binding is done with the promise that Satan will be released for a short time to again test mankind at least one more time.

• 4b. The Abyss• The New Testament tells us that this is the temporary dwelling place of the imprisoned demons (Revelation 9:1-21). In

classical Greek it is the adjective abussos. It refers to an “unfathomable or boundlessly deep place”. Many of the demons that Jesus expelled from the earth were committed to the abyss. They dreaded going there before their appointed time (Luke 8:31). Millions of them will be let loosed during the Great Tribulation in two separate invasions to wreck havoc on the earth. At this time they begin to appear so the human population can see them. Up until this time, when the fifth and sixth trumpets are sounded, the demonic world is unseen to the human eye (Revelation 9).

• 5. The First Resurrection• The first resurrection involves only believers and it is found in Revelation 20:

• “Revelation 20:5-6

• 5But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 6Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” (KJV)

• According to verse five, the resurrection of the Great Tribulation saints completes the First Resurrection. It is separated from the Second Resurrection by one thousand years. The whole point of verse six states that the First Resurrection involves only believers, and that is why it is a “blessed” event for those who participate in it.

• It is important for us to realize that the First Resurrection is not a general resurrection of all the dead at one time. The Bible teaches in 1 Corinthians 15: 20-23 that it is an orderly sequence and occurs in the five stages:

• 1 Corinthians 15:20-23

• “20But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. 21For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 23But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.” (KJV)

• This shows that all of the Christians shall live again, or be resurrected, and that there is an orderly progression to the stages of this resurrection. After declaring that a resurrection of the righteous will occur in verse 23, Paul states that the righteous will be resurrected each “in his own order”. The word “order” is a military term used to describe the orderly procession of troops marching to battle (in Greek it is tagma). It always refers to an orderly procession such as the movement of troops, or an orderly procession of the priests in the Old Testament. The central point of this passage is that there is an orderly, and sequential process, to the first resurrection, and includes these five stages:

• The First Resurrection Stages• The First Resurrection Stages•

• 6. The Resurrection of Old Testament Saints• We must keep in mind that the Rapture only includes the Church, that is, those who have accepted Jesus of Nazareth and

confessed His name before other men on this earth:

• Romans 10:9

• “9That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” (KJV)

• This verse, along with many others, further refines and gives explicit instruction in how to actualize our faith. We must tell others what has taken place in our hearts. It is similar to being obedient, and carrying out the commandment to be baptized. Both are outward signs attesting to the transformation that the Lord has brought about within us. So those, who have done this prior to the Great Tribulation, will have already gone up to Heaven to meet the Lord in the air at the time of the Rapture (I Thessalonians 4:16-17).

• The following two passages speak about believers from the Old Testament times who loved God, and who were waiting for His coming in the flesh. However, they died prior to Christ appearing on the planet. This is not to say they kept the Law, it means that they believed God and took Him at His Word. The Old Testament saints were the righteous ones waiting for the Lord’s appearing, like Simeon was in Luke 2:25. They will be rewarded for their belief:

• Isaiah 26:19

• “19Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead.” (KJV)

• This passage states that the Old Testament saints were guaranteed a resurrection, but it does not say when. Other verses bring the concept into clearer focus for us:

• Daniel 12:2

• “2And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to shame [and] everlasting contempt.” (KJV)

• This passage draws a very clear distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous. Within the context of the twelfth chapter of Daniel, this verse is speaking of a particular time at the “end.” It is addressed to the Jews who are identified as “your people” (Daniel 12:1). Only the righteous will be resurrected at this time to partake in the blessing of the Millennial Kingdom. These are also known as “the friends of the bridegroom” spoken of by John the Baptist (John 3:29). Since the context of Daniel chapter twelve is speaking of the events after the Great Tribulation, it is at that time that the Old Testament saints will be resurrected.

• 7. The Resurrection of Tribulation Saints• There will also be a resurrection of those saints who became believers and were killed during the Great Tribulation.

Revelation 20:4 tells us the facts surrounding this event:

• Revelation 20:4

• “4And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and [I saw] the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received [his] mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” (KJV)

• Here the apostle John sees two groups of people co-reigning with the Lord Jesus. The first group is those who already had received their judgment for their works from Christ. The judgment, called the Bema Seat Judgment, is referenced in Romans 14:10 and 2 Corinthians 5:10. This will be the Church age saints who are resurrected at the Rapture of the Church. They receive the judgment of their works, and their rewards, right after they enter Heaven from Christ (1 Corinthians 3).

• The second group is identified as those souls who have been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus. They were beheaded because they would not worship the Antichrist, nor would they consent to receive the mark of the Beast (666). These are the Tribulation saints. They go into the Millennial Kingdom with Christ.

• 8. The Marriage Feast of the Lamb• In the ancient Jewish wedding, the wedding feast was the last of four stages. The four stages of the ancient Jewish

wedding are reflected in the events planned long ago by God the Father:

• The Father of the Groom made the arrangement for the Bride and paid the bride price. In this case the price was the blood of Jesus (Ephesians 5:25-29).

• The fetching of the Bride is when she is ready and waiting to be escorted by her Bridegroom to the home of his father. This is comparable to the Rapture of the Church (I Thessalonians 4:13-18).

• The marriage ceremony of the Bride to the Groom, or when the Church weds the Messiah happens immediately after arriving at his father’s house (Church age saints are now in Heaven with Christ) (Revelation 19:6-8).

• The wedding, or marriage feast, is the last event of the sequence and lasts for seven days. The Marriage Feast of the Lamb is the event that begins the Messianic Kingdom.

• The Church is the bride and is married to Christ in Heaven after the Rapture. The First Resurrection brings the Old Testament saints, who are the friends of the bridegroom, and the Great Tribulation saints, who are also invitees, to complete the invited “guest list” to the wedding, and now the wedding feast can take place. The invitation has already been issued:

• Revelation 19:9

• “9And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.” (KJV)

• The result of this invitation is the First Resurrection to be followed by the wedding feast, which will last for seven days. Christ spoke of this during the Last Supper as He raised His glass of wine with His apostles:

• Matthew 26:27

• “27And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (KJV)

• This event concludes the seventy-five day interval and inaugurates the Millennium. The wedding feast parable told by The Messiah is connected with the Kingdom:

• Matthew 22:1-14

• “1And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said, 2The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, 3And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. 4Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage. 5But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: 6And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. 7But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. 8Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. 9Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. 10So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests. 11And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: 12And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. 13Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 14For many are called, but few are chosen.”(KJV)

• The main point of this parable is that those who were originally invited to the wedding feast, the Pharisees and the Jewish generation of Jesus’ day, will not partake of the feast or enter into the Messianic Kingdom. This is because they committed the unpardonable sin of attributing the works of God to Satan (“made light of it”). This is also known as “blaspheming the Holy Spirit” (Mark 3:29) The Jews of the Tribulation period will be at the supper and enter into the Kingdom. All unbelievers will be cast “into outer darkness” and will be excluded from entering the Messianic Kingdom:

• Matthew 25:1-13

• “1Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. 2And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. 3They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: 4But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. 5While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. 6And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. 7Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. 8And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. 9But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. 10And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. 11Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. 12But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. 13Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.”(KJV)

• The contrast that Christ speaks of here is not between two types of believers, but between believers and unbelievers. The “wise” virgins are the believers and they have oil, which is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, while the “foolish” virgins have no oil at all. They had not been prepared through belief. Some think there is plenty of time before they have to commit their lives to Christ, or they just do not want to believe that there is a God. We never know the day or the hour when He will come. The “foolish” ones were excluded from the wedding feast and from ever going in to the Messianic Kingdom. That is why they are “foolish”:

• Psalm 53:1a

• “1The fool hath said in his heart, [There is] no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity…” (KJV)

• Isaiah also connects a feast with the Kingdom and a resurrection of the dead:

• Isaiah 25:6-8

• “6And in this mountain will Jehovah of hosts make unto all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. 7And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering that covereth all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations. 8He hath swallowed up death for ever; and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of his people will he take away from off all the earth: for Jehovah hath spoken it” (KJV)

• So the Great Tribulation has ended, and the final events have been accomplished during the seventy-five day interval. This concludes with the Marriage feast of the Lamb Jesus who welcomes all believers into His Kingdom.

•

• Daniel E. Woodhead

•

• Bibliography:

• Fruchtenbaum, Arnold G. The Footsteps of the Messiah: A Study of the Sequence of Prophetic Events. San Antonio, TX: Ariel Ministries. 2004.

• Pentecost, J. Dwight. Things to Come. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. 1958.

• Gabelein Arno C. Gabelein’s Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible. Neptune, NJ: Loizeauz Brothers. 1970.

• Peters, George H. H. The Theocratic Kingdom in Three Volumes. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publication. 1952.

• Unger, Merrill F. Great Neglected Bible Prophecies. Chicago, IL: Scripture Press Book Division. 1955.

• Walvoord, John F. Daniel The Key to Prophetic Revelation. Chicago: The Moody Bible Institute. 1971.

Joshua 1:9TAKING A FULL SWING, by Eric Elder, theranch.org

• TAKING A FULL SWINGJoshua 1:9

• by Eric Elderhttp://www.theranch.org

• • If you’re like me, you might tend to second guess yourself at times, wondering if you’re doing the right thing or if you’ve heard right from God. I think each of us go through seasons of doubt about the decisions we’ve made, especially when life around us starts

to look like it’s about to fall apart.• What do you do when you reach those critical moments and you have to decide if you’re going to keep moving forward, or if you need to regroup and retreat and perhaps go in a different direction entirely?• When I reach that point, it’s helpful for me to look at the words that God spoke to Joshua as he was about to enter into the Promised Land. God said:• “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).• There are 3 aspects of these words that I find especially helpful. The first is to remind myself why I made the decision I did in the first place.• In Joshua’s case, God reminded him that He, God, was the one who had called Joshua to enter into the Promised Land. “Have I not commanded you?” God had actually called Joshua and his people to enter the Promised Land 40 years earlier, but they didn’t do

it. When they reached the border the first time, they were afraid to go in, so they turned around and headed back into the desert for another 40 years.• Now, 40 years later, Joshua had reached the same crossroad again, and God reminded him: “Have I not commanded you?” Joshua, of course, would have remembered what God had said to him in the past, and the price that he and all the others had to pay

for not doing what God had called them to do. They may have still been afraid to move forward, and the price of doing so might still be costly, but the price of turning back again would cost even more.• For me, it’s helpful to refresh my memory of why I decided to do what I did in the first place. If, after reviewing that initial decision, it still seems sound and reasonable, then I look at the second part of God’s words to Joshua: “Be strong and courageous. Do not

be terrified; do not be discouraged..”• This part is helpful because we don’t usually know what really lies ahead, and venturing into the unknown often strikes fear in our hearts. The very fact that God had to tell Joshua to be strong and courageous indicates to me that there were very real fears that

could have overtaken his heart, and that there was probably a good reason they needed to be strong and courageous. What they were about to face would require strength and courage; it would require internal fortitude and resolve.• God wouldn’t have needed to tell Joshua, “Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged” if, in fact, there was nothing to be terrified or discouraged about. The truth was, what they were about to face was terrifying and it could have discouraged them, just as it did

40 years earlier. Then why did God tell them this? If there were really and truly terrifying dangers ahead, why would God tell them not to be afraid or discouraged? Because of what he tells them next in the third part of this significant verse: “for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

• I try to imagine walking through a mine field ahead of me. If I had to do it on my own, I know I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be able to see or even to guess where the mines might be. But if God was with me, walking with me every step of the way, and I held on tight to Him, I have no doubt that He would be able to walk me through that field of mines just fine. I would just need to make sure I was staying as close to Him as possible, and stepping only where He stepped.

• When I look at these three things–why I made the decision I made in the first place, why I might need to be strong and courageous, and how God will be with me every step of the way–it helps me to make my next move. Many times that means I need to keep moving forward and finish what I started, no matter how difficult the circumstances might become as I do so.

• I reached this point a few weeks ago with our “2nd Annual Ranch Retreat.” I put a stake in the ground 3 months ago by naming it our “2nd Annual” retreat, after having done our first the year before. But was I really ready to commit to doing this on an annual basis? And was I really ready to announce to the world that I should call it an annual event? I felt a little bit like George Lucas must have felt when he put the subtitle on his first Star Wars movie and called it “Episode IV.” The very name itself implied that there were someday going to be Episodes I, II and II even though it would be another 20 years before he filmed the first of these “prequels.”

• But I felt strongly enough about the retreat that I went ahead and named it the “2nd Annual Ranch Retreat” 3 months before it took place. But after we were 2 months into advertising and promoting it and we still didn’t have even one person signed up, I started to wonder if I had made the wrong decision. Even with just 2 weeks to go before the event took place, we had only a handful of people registered. I had to decide if we were going to cancel the whole event all together, ending our run of “annual” retreats before we even got to the 2nd one!

• I don’t mind being wrong, but I don’t like to back out of something just because I’m afraid of how it might turn out–especially if God has called me to do it and He wants to accomplish something through it. So I called my friends who were putting it together with me and we talked it through again. We could have easily cancelled at that point, but I had to remind myself why we were doing it in the first place, and if God had really called us to do it.

• About that time I was also reading a book with my son by Ted Dekker and he was talking about the process he went through in creating the book and getting it published. He pitched the idea to several publishers, all of whom turned it down. Years went by and he pitched it again and again, only to be turned down again and again. Publishers told him that nobody read this kind of story.

• After years of having no success, Ted finally found someone, Allen Arnold, who believed in his idea enough to take a risk and publish his story. They found out that not only were people interested in reading this kind of story, but soon 50,000 soon joined in on the discussion of the book and its ideas at teddekker.com. The book, and the series it spawned, had struck a chord in the hearts of thousands who wanted to talk about everything that it had stirred up within them, including my own kids. Ted wrote this in the afterward of the book we were reading:

• “I once told Allen that I was born to write these chronicles. Admittedly, their writing is only a small part of my life. But if I was born to write them, then in a small, small way, you may have been born to read them. We, like the stories themselves, find ourselves interconnected in this wonderful thing called the story of life. You are part of my history, and I am part of yours. And this, my friend, is what it means to come full circle” (Ted Dekker, Red, pg 385).

• I decided to finish what I had started, and give it the best possible chance of success as I could. As I stood in front of the group last weekend at our “2nd Annual Ranch Retreat,” I couldn’t help but think of Ted’s words and the challenges he faced in order to do what he felt he should do. 40 people had gathered with me here in Illinois from all across the country, from places like California, Colorado, Michigan, Kansas, Indiana and Georgia. We sang and praised God, we opened His Word, and we opened our hearts and lives to Him and to each other.

• As I looked around the room on the final night, I read Ted Dekker’s quote to those who had gathered, saying that if God had called me to do this, then perhaps, in a some small, small way, they were meant to be there, too.• And as you read these words today, if I was called to write them, then perhaps in some small, small way, you were meant to read them, too.• The decisions you make are important, and it’s important to make the best decisions that we can up front. Sometimes we need to regroup along the way or retreat and go in a different direction entirely, admitting that we’re fallible and that there are times when

it’s best to cut our losses before they take us down completely. But many times we simply need to remind ourselves of why we decided to do what we’re doing in the first place, then going forward with full strength and courage to see it through to the end.• I was reading through a physics book with another son a few weeks ago as part of his schooling. We were studying momentum and read that the difference between good and bad baseball players is “follow through.” According to the laws of physics, there are

two things that determine how far a ball will travel when its hit by a bat. The first is how hard the bat strikes the ball. But a second factor is also significant, and that’s how long the bat and the ball stay in contact with each other. The longer the connection, the stronger the momentum. That’s why batters need to take a “full” swing, following through with the swing that was started and not stopping the moment the bat hits the ball.

• Sometimes we stop mid-swing when we hit an obstacle, stunned and wondering if we should have even stepped up to the plate. But if we’ve stepped up to the plate with God, and if we can remember why we’re doing what we’re doing in the first place, then we can take a full swing and knock the ball out of the park.

• “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).• Let’s pray…• Father, thank You for giving each of us a purpose here on earth and the gifts and resources to carry out those purposes. Help us to make wise decision not only at the start of a project, but all the way through it. Give us Your wisdom as we take each step, showing

us where to walk, where not to walk, and how to keep moving forward despite the obstacles in front of us. Remind us of what You’ve called us to do and give us the strength and courage to do it. Help us to take a full swing, so we can fulfill our purposes, and perhaps in some small, small way, help others fulfill theirs, too. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

• P.S. You can still watch all 3 sessions right now from the Ranch Retreat online at www.theranch.org/retreat