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THE BATTLE (Josh 5:13-15) "Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, Are you for us or for our enemies? Neither, he replied, but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come. Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence, and asked him, What message does my Lord have for his servant? The commander of the Lord's army replied, Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy. And Joshua did so." As the presence of "the commander of the army of the Lord" indicates, the Lord will take part in this conflict, not as an ally or an adversary, but as Commander In Chief. This is because it is not Israel's quarrel, one in which they are to ask for divine assistance. It is the Lord's own quarrel, and Israel and Joshua are but a division in His host. If we the people of the Lord could grasp the understanding of this, we would no longer try to fight our foes using our own strengths and ideas. The revelation in this scripture passage is awesome, although it is truly nothing new: God wants to move in battle against the enemies of our soul, so we need to follow the example of Joshua, the man of God, to fall on our face and say; "What message does the Lord have for His servant?" We must come to the realization that without direction from the commander of the Lord's army, we don't stand a chance against our adversaries. (Gal 5:17) "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." The fallen nature that lies latent within every human being remains a potential hindrance to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, not only because the old nature is sinful, but mainly because it is too self reliant. The unfortunate fact is that through our own futility, the lives of others can be devastated. When will we realize that the Church is a body, and one part of the body cannot suffer without affecting other parts? The very spiritual and physical lives of others are at risk when we walk into the battlefields without knowing the mind of Christ in the situation. THE BATTLE is the Lord's. He made it quite clear in the latter chapters of the book of Joshua, and in every victory where the Bible reads that the Spirit fell on the servants of the Lord, or that God caused things to happen that brought His people through insurmountable circumstances. So we know that our part in the battle against the evil and the enemies that threaten us is to simply humble ourselves by being obedient to what the Lord of hosts tells us to do. This standard of holiness is not an attempt to earn our salvation, but simply our part in THE BATTLE. - Kurt Thurston
June 1996 Newsletter | Freedom From Bondage | The Battle | Pastor's Journal - June 1995 Mouths of Praise | Steadfastness: Its Requirements, Work and Rewards Revised: June 25, 2008. |
Biblical Counseling for Leaders
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