Voice of the Nazarene 11-30-25

Voice of the Nazarene 11-30-25

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Ray, coming to you from North Central Ohio. We share with you the voice of the Nazarene a week by week. Venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus Ohio Church of the Nazarene. We join our pastor, Reverend Ray La Salle, and the voice of the Nazarene

Pastor Ray LaSalle: 0:17

by faith. The walls of Jericho fell, fell down after they were compassed about seven days, and I want us to Join Joshua in his journey. What we've been doing, we've been going through the 11th chapter of Hebrews and looking for some of the great heroes of faith, and we're pulling out some of those. We started with Abraham at his altars, and from there to Enoch and his example. Today, we want to join and journey along with Joshua. I don't know if you've noticed, but there, as you before you get to Joshua, there are nine names that are listed and named those great heroes, nine of them. And then you come to Joshua. And what's interesting, when you come to Joshua, you see all of these great walls around the city of Jericho. And interesting enough, Joshua's name is never listed. What he did was listed, but he never got his name in the Hall of Fame, in the hall of faith. It reminds me of a boy that was born, and for some reason his mother named him Odd. Odd. Here he comes. And what's that That's odd. I bet a lot of people with that name, but they didn't have it on their birth certificate, but I thought it. And he went through life, everybody calling him odd, and he he hated it, but he lived with it. And he said, One day I'm going to die, and when I do and they put my headstone up, I want him to leave it blank. I don't want my name on that. Just leave it blank. Put date of birth, date of death, but leave my name off. And they did. When people walked through that cemetery and they saw that tombstone, they said, That's odd. That's odd. The guy went to went to the court, and the judge asked him. Said, why are you here? He said, I want my name changed. He said, why? He said, I don't like my name. He said, What? What's your name? He said, It's Henry. Stinks. Well. The judge said, I don't blame you. What do you want to change it to? He said, John. He said, I never did like Henry. Do you ever think about all of those listed in the Bible who did great, great deeds, and God used them in a powerful way, and we were never given their name? Do you ever think about that? I thought about the wise men they traveled 1500 miles or more, traveled for two years, gave gifts to Christ, and we don't even have their name. I thought of the little boy that gave his lunch, and more than 5000 men, plus everybody else there were fed, and they don't even list the kid's name. I thought of the widow woman that put in two mites and Jesus saw it and pointed it out in her name never fell from the lips of Christ. I thought of the Good Samaritan went out of his way to bind up the wounds of a fallen man. Apparently, our names are not nearly as important as we think. John Wesley said, I would to God that all party names and unscriptural phrases and forms which have divided the Christian world were forgotten. He said, I would rejoice at the name Methodist. And he started that that great church, he said, I I would rejoice that the name Methodist would never be mentioned, but burned into eternal oblivion. Charles Spurgeon, known to be the greatest Baptist preacher to ever live. He said, I say of the Baptist name, let it perish, for I look forward with pleasure to the day when there shall not be a Baptist living. Those names aren't so important. My name is not important. I'll leave here one day, maybe sooner than I. Had. We're all going to leave at some point. There's 13 pictures in the hall across from the grand foyer. The only one that doesn't have a picture. It's just a frame with a name. He was probably the greatest pastor you ever had, the pictureless one, but they'll hang another picture there. My name is not important. Your name is not so important. Wherefore God hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every other name that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, that in heaven, under the heavens under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus, Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father Philippians, two, nine. Listen, folk, my name is not important. Yours is it? The denominational name out front is not so important. What is important is the name of Jesus, for Neither is there salvation under any other so we get to this guy whose name is not even mentioned, and there's five things that I'd like to dig out and learn from joining with Joshua on his journey. First, I want you to notice Joshua's faith in his commencement. I'm interested in how he began, his early beginnings, his start, and suddenly, out of nowhere, the scriptures open and pulls back the curtain, and his name is listed, And Moses said to him, in Exodus 79 I want you to go out and choose some men where you go out. And you're going to fight amalickit Tomorrow, and I'm going to stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God. And I want you to be in the battle down there in the valley. I'll be up on the mountain. You're going to be fighting down in the valley, and I'm going to be on the mountain with a rod, and when I hold it up, and guess what? When he held that rod up, they won the battle against Amalek. But when the arms of Moses were weary and he dropped them, they lost the battle. And finally, they sent two men up to hold up the arms of Moses, Aaron and her, and the battle was won, and Moses is on the mountain, and Joshua was down in the valley. And understand, we're kind of like Joshua. We're in a battle down in the valley of life. We're always going to be in a battle with the valley fighting the battle. Understand, the battle is not won down there in the Valley. It's won up there on the mountain top. The battle is won on the mountain and we fight the battle down here, but the battle is won up there. And Moses' hands being lifted up represent prayer and praise, the two hands that are needed. The secret to winning any battle is not won by fighting the battle. Every battle is won on our knees in prayer. The battle taking place down here, but the battle is won up there. Can you prove that? Pastor, I don't know, try in Acts chapter 16 and beginning in verse 25 Paul and Silas said it at midnight. They prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. Not enough just to praise our prayer, but we need to intermingle praise along with our prayer. We're to enter into his courts with praise. Do you know the Bible speaks more about praise than it does about prayer? For every time that prayer is listed, Praise is listed 50 times when you get to heaven, you won't be praying, you're going to be praising you better start practicing up. You're not going to fit in very well, and you need to start looking for ways to praise the Lord. Look for ways to praise Him. And it said on Sunday, there was a great earthquake, and the foundation of the prison was shaken, and that jail house rock took place before Elvis, let me tell you, and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's bands were loose. And here's what I see, here's the lesson that I learned from Joshua, is that prayer is the secret as well as praise of winning every battle. Lloyd John Ogilvie, maybe you've heard the name. He was a Presbyterian preacher. He was also the United States chaplain for a number of years. He was on a plane. He had spoke. In Kansas, and he was flying back to his home in California, and they're way up in the air, and suddenly there came a message over the radio to the cockpit, and it said, there's a bomb threat on the plane, and we understand that when that plane drops down below 5000 feet, it's going to decimate everything and everybody. It'll be pieces left the moment he drops below 5000 feet. And word began to spread, and they found there was a preacher on board the plane, and they wanted the preacher to pray. Now, I'm telling you, when you go through the struggles of life. You're not looking for the Lounge Lizards down there at the local club. You're looking for somebody that can ring the bells of heaven, somebody that can touch God. And they said, Would you pray? And and Lloyd John Ogilvy stood, and he began to pray, and that crowd began to weep. And in his prayer, he said, God, give the pilot wisdom. And the pilot said, I've got a plan. We're on our way from Kansas to California. We're going to fly over Denver, Colorado and Denver, Colorado. His mind remembered that it was 5280 feet above sea level. And they said, when you drop below 5000 it's going to kick that bomb into blowing up. And he knew, if I can land at Denver airport, it's now down below 5000 it's 5280 feet above sea level. And he landed the plane, and they were all safe. And what I'm trying to say to you this morning, somebody needs to know how to pray. And when we go through difficult times and all of that, you better know God and the Prayer is the key to every victory in your life, but not only his commencement, his beginning, his start, but look at his calling. Bible said Moses is dead. And if you're a leader, and many of you are, you need to remember one thing, Moses raised up a Joshua. The sad thing is, Joshua never raised up another Joshua. He had a leader that could follow him. And in verse two, he said, My servant, Moses, is dead. Now. He said, You lead the people. Joshua. You're my man. You lead. And he said, every place the sole of your foot shall tread upon that I've given unto you, as I said to Moses, and I'll be with you as I was with Moses. Here's what I want you to understand. It said every place that your foot shall tread that told me something, Joshua had to step out. There's times where we have to step out by faith and take some chances and step out in leadership and try something new. You say, Well, we've never done it. I know that's why we're in the tickle that we're in. Nobody wants to try anything different. Everybody's sucking the thumb and sucking the bottle, and nobody wants to grow up and try something for God. And he said, step out. Now, may I say to you that God is a calling for every one of us. The word vocation comes from the Latin word for care, and it means a calling. God has a calling on every one of God's called you and you and God's called you, and God's called you and God's called this section. God has a plan, a special plan, and a purpose for every life. Somebody moved into the neighborhood, the husband said to his wife, I want you to fix some of that good banana bread with the pecans in it. Now, anytime they put nuts in it, I'm for it. I'll jump to the head of the line. I'll cheat to get that. I mean, you put walnut or pecans in cookies or cake or banana bread, and I'm voting for it. And he said, I want you to fix it. And she did, and he took it down to the new neighbors. Knocked on their door. The man answered the door, and he said, My wife made this for you. You're our new neighbors. Incidentally, since you're new to the community, you're probably looking for a church, I want to invite you to come to our church. Here's a banana bread. Will you come to our church? He said, I'll come. Of course. He told his wife later said, I told him I'd go to that church. She said, I don't want to go. It's a big church. I don't like big churches. But he said, We've got to go. I told the man we'd come, and we've already eaten the banana bread. We got to go once, we'll go once we'll ever have to go again. Of course, three years later, still coming in that a novel thought. Invite somebody new in your neighborhood to come to church. Of course, everybody's new in your neighborhood since you haven't invited anybody. Zoom. Zoom there at one again. Have you thought about that? We've missed it, folk, we need to be inviting some of the things that we think are so unimportant are more important than you might think. People need a church. They need a pastor. They need somebody to love them. They need God. They need to make heaven their home. One day, we want them to move into our new neighborhood in heaven, we need to invite them. God has a calling, and some of us can get involved in on that calling, if we would. And then Joshua's faith is in his courage. Winston Churchill said, courage is the courage is the ability to stand up and speak when you need to. And then he also said, courage is what it takes to sit down and listen when you need to. I love the story about the guy that said I saw this ferocious lion. I jerked out my pocket knife and I cut his tail off. Another guy said, Why didn't you cut his head off? He said, Somebody already had there it went again. Now, Joshua was a young man, and Moses sent him out to spy out the promised land. You got to understand, the promised land doesn't sound like a promised land. I mean, they get over there and and it's a rough terrain, and there's giants, and there's mountains and all that kind of stuff. But he with 11 others, they go over and they enter that land, and when they return, 10 of them said There were giants. Massive giants. We look like grasshoppers in their sight. Did you know those giants? Never said to those 12 spies, you look like grasshoppers. No, that's what they told themselves. What you're sitting around telling yourself is more important than you think. It'll give you the spirit of fear if you're not careful. And the most quoted and the most mentioned promise in all of the Bible is that little promise, Fear not. 366 times, one for every day of the year and one for leap year, Fear not. And the 10 said, we can't do it. And Joshua said these words they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, the land which we pass through to search. It is an exceedingly good land, and if the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it us, a land which floweth with milk and honey. Said, it's incredible. Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither Fear ye the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their defense is departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Fear them, not now, the people will be bread for us. What does bread do? Bread makes you spread. And he said, if we get into battle with them, it'll enlarge us, it'll increase us. It'll give us new influence like we've never had. It'll give us new territory. And when we go through our struggles and our difficulties and and through hardship, we can come out of it, not bitter, but better, expanded and enlarged. For the Lord is with us. And he said, fear them, not you say, well, preacher, why did he have such courage? Well, I think I can tell you why. Genesis, 1580 and I just heard it on the news this morning. I don't know if you caught that Jew talking and reading out of the Scripture, but there in that little passage in Genesis, 600 years before God had promised the land in the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed, have I given this land from the river of Egypt under the great river, the river Euphrates great now, I love the story of the two men sitting there together watching the 11 o'clock news. And the spatial was there was a man on the edge of a bridge, and he's contemplating jumping off, or the police are trying to talk him out of it. And the one guy sitting there watching said to his buddy, I'll bet you $20 he jumps off. He said, I'll take your bet. About that time the man jumped off, and the other guy said, Oh, here's your 20. He said, I can't take it. I watched the six o'clock news. I saw him jump. The other guy said, I did too, but I didn't think he'd jump twice. Well, Joshua had watched the six o'clock news. He had read the promises. He already knew beforehand that God would give him courage to take the land and that you need to understand. Joshua, one five, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I'll not fail thee nor forsake thee. And the same God that was with Moses is the same God that wants to be with with you. He said, There shall not any man be able to stand before thee in all the days of thy life. Verse. Seven only be thou strong, very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded, turn not to the right hand, either to the left, that thou mayest prosper, do good. Do you know the only time that God ever uses the word success in Scripture is right here in this only time, and it's right here in verse eight. And then thou shalt have good success, not only success, but good success. I guess you can have bad success and good success. And he said, I'm going to give you good success. I'll be with you whether so ever you go verse nine. Now quickly, let's look at Joshua's faith in his conquest. We get to Jericho. Jericho is the oldest city in all of the world. Okay? It's occupied now by 99% Muslims. The Jews are not even on the West Bank, and the Jews are not even allowed to enter into the city of Jericho at this time, but back then, it was a walled city. The walls were 15 feet wide, 28 feet tall, and the rubble from those collapsed walls can still be seen. They're darkened. Why? Because after the walls fell, they burned the city. Somebody tried to explain what happened. They said it was an earthquake. It wasn't an earthquake. You see the northern part of the wall is still standing. Do you know why it's still standing? Because a lady had a house built on that wall. Her name was Rahab, and she was kind to God's people, and in return, God promised, those spies tell her that when the destruction comes, that you and your family will be saved, and that wall is still standing because God kept His promise like he always does. And the reason the walls came down wasn't an earthquake is because God said so do you know that every one of us here in the House have some walls in our life, walls that need to come down. I don't know what season in life you're in and what you're dealing with. Not everybody has some walls. How can we conquer? Scripture says we're more than conquerors through him that loved us. Whatever was. Let me give you three things real quick, like if you listen faster, we'll get done sooner. Number one is obedience. Obedience. I thought about Joshua going up. I wondered what kind of military strategy he was going to use. And here was his plan. He said, I want seven priests to walk out to the front. I want you to take trumpets, and you're going to walk around the city for six days once a day. On the seventh day, you're going to walk around seven times, and on that seventh time, you're going to blow the trumpet, and all the people are going to shout obedience. I think it's okay to come to church. I think it's okay to get excited. You can be quiet if you need to. God makes us all different, but I want to hasten to say it's alright to shout once in a while, too, and it's okay to blow your trumpet, just don't blow your top. You say, Well, I'd like to get on with that, but preacher, my life so messed up, that's okay. But if from this point on, you want to obey God, God will help you get the walls down in your life. You can't go back and undo a lot of things, but from here on, you can start doing what's right. Okay? And the second thing, don't give attention so much to all the joy suckers. I've had it with joy suckers. I've had a mouthful and a lifetime of them. Seemed like my whole ministry is always going against the joy suckers. If you've got a leaven by 15 or 11 by 14 dream, whatever you do, don't share it with a five by seven mindset. Those are the joy suckers people small minded every time you try to lead a ministry and try to take it someplace, always, some small minds want to take block it and keep it small and fight every step of the way, and we're in a ministry trying to keep people out of hell. Why? Why run four no more, when we can reach an entire community if we all get on board Joy suckers get to the back door and they want to suck the joy out of you. You say, Can you prove it? Well, read what he said here in chapter six, verse 10, Joshua had commanded the people, saying, We shall not shout nor make any noise with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth until the day I bid you shout. Then shall you shout? Keep your mouth shut, he said, Now I wouldn't say that with all of my Polish. I'm. Real careful, but he knew if they started marching around by about the second day, somebody would fold their arms and nothing's happening, is it? I told you it wouldn't. I told you this was a stupid plan. Joy suckers, I think, well, to be like the mosquito that took its first flight. When he returned, his dad asked him, How did it go, son? Oh, he said, Dad, it went well, everybody was clapping for me. Everybody was clapping for me. And I'm simply saying there will always be some joy. Suckers. You talking to me, Pastor, well, if your phone's ringing, pick it up. And then, may I add a third thing, don't ever give up. They went around six times. Nothing happened on the seventh day. They went around six more times. And on the seventh time something happened, I'm simply saying don't give up. If you messed up, get back up. But don't give up. Just keep going. Keep going. God's got a plan, and then I want to deal with his faith and his commitment. Get this, when Joshua was was a young man. He went and spied out the land in his middle age, he replaced and took Moses spot, and now he's an old man. And we come to Joshua chapter 24 it's an amazing chapter. If you get discouraged, read this chapter. Please. Read this chapter 17 times. In chapter 24 he reminds the people of how good God had been. I think we forget that. We get to thinking of how bad life is, and we forget how good God has been 17 times. He said, in verse 13, I've given you a land for which you didn't labor. I've given you cities that you didn't build, and yet you dwell in them. I've given you vineyards and olive yards which you planted not but you still eat from them. 17 times, folk, hasn't God been good to us? I think God's been better to me than anybody in the world, because I know what I came from. You don't, but I do. I just don't tell you I got my own problems, but I know I came from nowhere to nothing. Every step of the way it took God to open the door. God's been good. May I just say that some of you are living in a lot better houses than you ever dreamed you'd be living in today, some of you've got better resources that God's provided for you. God's given you good children, great grandchildren, every step of the way. God's brought people into your life to encourage you, and God's given you friends that that have made a difference in your life. He reminds us of how good God. And he gets to verse 14, and he says, Fear the Lord. Serve Him in sincerity and truth, put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt, and serve you the Lord. He said, Why don't you put away false gods? Can I say to everyone in the house and those watching, get rid of the little gods in your life that's holding you back. Serve the only true God. That's what he's saying. I don't know about you. I don't understand why we need to beg people to serve God for the life of me, and I'm not telling you my age is a secret. Can you keep a secret? Doubt it, but for the life of me, I can't understand why you have to beg people to come to church. I don't browbeat much about giving and all of that, but for the life of me, as good as God has been, why would you have to beg people to give when God's going to richly bless us, because we've given to him what we owe him. God's been good. All the heartache God's brought you through, all the struggles God's brought you through. He may have walked out, but God didn't. She may have left, but God didn't. And Joshua said, some of you may have wanted to serve these strange gods, but here in verse 15, he said, now that I'm old as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. And I don't know what the rest of you are going to do, but I'm going to tell you what at this stage in my life, me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord and Joshua all those years, leading the people. One of the greatest leaders has ever walked in shoe leather, brought the walls of Jericho down, brought the people into the promised land. The walls are mentioned, but his name was never listed. My name won't get into that Great Hall of Fame either, but I'm going to go down saying, as for me and my house, we're going to serve God.

Unknown: 30:16

Thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene. Visit us every Sunday at 9am with B and C's pastor, Ray la salle. For more information regarding B and C, visit Bucyrus nazarene.org you.