SPEAKER_02: Hello everyone, I'm Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_02: I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_02: Each week we go into God's Word.
SPEAKER_02: We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse.
SPEAKER_02: We are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world.
SPEAKER_02: So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life.
SPEAKER_02: Today, be encouraged by our guest speaker.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Pastor Josh.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the prayer and worship guy here, and I'm taking over where we left off in Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: So let me pray for us real quick and we can turn to chapter 12, Joshua chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit, I just invite you to come.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, would you come and confirm the preaching of your word with signs, wonders, miracles, the workings of faith with power today?
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I ask that you would reignite our hearts with faith, with hope that you'd release empowering and enabling grace.
SPEAKER_01: Even as I'm preaching, would you speak words of life that release grace to those that hear it and enable them to do the impossible?
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, would you help me not to speak out of turn or speak anything heretical that'll make me look really stupid?
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_01: So we're in Joshua chapter 12, and I'm gonna go through the whole chapter of Joshua and then the first seven verses of chapter 13.
SPEAKER_01: And uh I want to just set this up by saying this might look really boring, and even when I was reading through this passage and trying to come up with some type of message, I was like, Lord, this is just a list of names.
SPEAKER_01: Like, what am I supposed to do with this?
SPEAKER_01: And I felt like he showed me this picture and it reminded me of Pastor Steve's house.
SPEAKER_01: He's got this upper room in his house that has all these animal heads on the wall.
SPEAKER_01: And uh sorry if you're like a pro-animal person.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a pro-animal person too.
SPEAKER_01: I love the way they taste.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, but I felt like the Lord was showing me that this is like the trophy room for Israel and like for Joshua's house.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're gonna show up to Joshua's house, it's a lot like Pastor Steve's house, where he's got all of these kings, not literally their heads, but all of these nations that they defeated.
SPEAKER_01: And in this chapter, he's gonna list off 31 kingdoms that were defeated in Joshua's lifetime.
SPEAKER_01: That is a large number.
SPEAKER_01: We're not talking 31 battles.
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about 31 kingdoms that between Moses and Joshua leading the Israelites, they defeated, they overcame, and they possessed their possessions.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a beautiful picture of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: And I think all of us can relate to that, looking through our history with God and seeing the enemies that He's defeated with us.
SPEAKER_01: And now they're like trophies on the wall, and they're things that we can remember.
SPEAKER_01: So imagine being Joshua writing this chapter down, and he intimately knows the details of each one of these battles, each one of these wars, each one of these kings and kingdoms, what they're known about, where they are, and then he's gonna go into chapter 13 and redistribute their land as an inheritance for the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: So let's read the first six verses of chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: These are the kings of the land whom the children of Israel defeated, and whose land they possessed on the other side of the Jordan, toward the rising of the sun, from the river Arnon to Mount Hermon, and all the eastern Jordan plain.
SPEAKER_01: One king was Sihon, king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon and ruled half of Gilead, from Auror, which is on the bank of the river Arnon, from the middle of that river, even as far as the river Jabbok, which is the border of the Ammonites, and the eastern Jordan plain, from the sea of Chinneroth as far as the sea of Erabah, the Salt Sea, the road to Beth Jeshemoth, and southward below the slopes of Piscah.
SPEAKER_01: The other king was Og, king of Bashan, and his territory, who was of the remnant of the giants who dwelt at Ashtaroth and at Edriai, and reigned over Mount Hermon, over Salkah, over all Bashan, as far as the border of the Gesherites and the Makathites, and over half of Gilead to the border of Sihon, king of Heshbon.
SPEAKER_01: These Moses, the servant of the Lord, and the children of Israel had conquered.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses, the servant of the Lord, had given it as a possession to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
SPEAKER_01: So the people are finally inheriting the promises from God.
SPEAKER_01: And if you remember, when Moses was leading the Israelites, they came through the Red Sea, and then they came up and around to the east side of the Jordan River, and then they defeated these kingdoms on the east side of the Jordan River, and that region was given to Gad, the tribe of Gad, the tribe of Reuben, and then half of the tribe of Manasseh.
SPEAKER_01: Manasseh had a half tribe on the eastern side of the Jordan, and then the other half tribe was on the western side of the Jordan, kind of to the south.
SPEAKER_01: And the rest of the children of Israel are going to be given an inheritance on the western side of the Jordan.
SPEAKER_01: So these first six verses are the kings that were conquered under Moses' leadership.
SPEAKER_01: But remember, Moses was disobedient and he misrepresented God.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of speaking to the rock for water, he beat the heck out of it with his staff.
SPEAKER_01: And God didn't like that because it misrepresented him.
SPEAKER_01: And it's also a picture of how Jesus, the rock, was only struck once.
SPEAKER_01: And it transitioned into a new covenant where the word of the Lord is what releases water.
SPEAKER_01: So Moses represents the law.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote the Pentateuch, Joshua, which his name is the Lord is salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same name that Jesus had.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus and Joshua, it's the same name, it's just Greek and Hebrew.
SPEAKER_01: And he's a picture of the grace of Jesus, the grace of the new covenant.
SPEAKER_01: So the law can only bring you so far, it can't save you.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua led the people into an earthly promised land, and Jesus is leading us into a spiritual promised land.
SPEAKER_01: And we've done a lot to cover kind of those analogies that all of these physical things that are happening in the book of Joshua are a picture of what's happening in the spiritual realm for us as the church.
SPEAKER_01: That's a really important detail.
SPEAKER_01: And the church historically has sometimes compared crossing the Jordan and possessing the promised land as going into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: But I really disagree with that because there's no enemies in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: But there were enemies in the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: So God's promises for you, yes, one of them is you're gonna go to heaven one day.
SPEAKER_01: But if the only goal was for you to go to heaven, then really death is your Savior just as much as Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: But the goal is to get heaven into you.
SPEAKER_01: The goal is to get the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 1, as a down payment of your inheritance into you, so that you can start possessing his promises now.
SPEAKER_01: And so that we can start evicting enemies out of the regions that the Holy Spirit is trying to give to us and to our children and to this generation as an inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: Great.
SPEAKER_01: So let's read uh verses seven and eight.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I'm gonna mispronounce a lot of these names.
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm a music teacher by trade, so this is a little bit out of my wheelhouse, but just pretend like I'm saying everything right.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we're in chapter 12, verse 7 and 8.
SPEAKER_01: These are the kings of the country which Joshua and the children of Israel conquered on this side of the Jordan on the wests, from Baal Gad in the valley of Lebanon as far as Mount Halak, and the ascent of Seir, which Joshua gave to the tribes of Israel as a possession according to their divisions.
SPEAKER_01: In the mountain country, in the lowlands, in the Jordan plain, in the slopes, in the wilderness, and in the south, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
SPEAKER_01: So these are the kings that are conquered under Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: And in verses nine through sixteen, I'm not going to read all of these verses, but those are the southern kings.
SPEAKER_01: So it's got a list of these southern kings on the west side.
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to mirror for you.
SPEAKER_01: West for you is that way, right?
SPEAKER_01: So on the west side of the Jordan in the southern area, that's verses nine through sixteen.
SPEAKER_01: Those are the southern kings defeated.
SPEAKER_01: Then on the northern side, it's verses 17 through 24.
SPEAKER_01: And uh I'm just gonna read verse 24, which is the last verse.
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to read through these names, it's there was there's some really fascinating stuff in here.
SPEAKER_01: If you've read the Old Testament and even the conquests of David and uh the history and chronicles and kings, you'll recognize some of these names.
SPEAKER_01: So it is kind of fun to remind ourselves, these originally were the lands that belonged to the enemies of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And now we're reading stories about David doing things in Heshbon and the Israelites doing things in certain regions, and it really is a land that Israel possessed.
SPEAKER_01: Like God's promises were true.
SPEAKER_01: Like if you can put yourself in the shoes of Joshua and Caleb, who were the only two people that believed God and mixed faith with his promises, Hebrews says that the Israelites couldn't cross the Jordan because they refused to mix faith with the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of times that's one of our hindrances is God gives us a promise, but we don't mix our faith with it.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: God can provide something by grace, but if we don't ask for it and we don't pursue it by faith and mix our faith with the promises of God, then we too can get stuck taking laps in the wilderness when he's trying to get us into our promises.
SPEAKER_01: So imagine Joshua and Caleb, they've been following the rest of the Israelites for like 40 years, taking a lap, and now they're finally entering the promised land, and they actually do it.
SPEAKER_01: And they're gonna talk about Caleb in the next few chapters and how he took his inheritance and this mountain full of giants.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just like, man, I want to be like those two guys who believe God when it looks very unlikely.
SPEAKER_01: You see the giants in the land, you see the enemies in the land, these other ten guys are like, we look like grasshoppers in their sight, but Joshua and Caleb say, nope, it's good food for us.
SPEAKER_01: It's a good land for us, and God's on our side, and we're gonna overcome, we're gonna take it.
SPEAKER_01: That's who I want to be.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be Caleb, who actually possess what God has provided in his promises by mixing faith with his word.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: This is Joshua 12, verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the last king, the king of Terza, 1, all the kings, 31.
SPEAKER_01: And I think this is a great practice.
SPEAKER_01: We should all do what Joshua did and write down the names of the principalities and powers God's defeated in your life.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, in my own personal life, I could spend the rest of my time, 27 minutes, just telling you the things that God has defeated in my life.
SPEAKER_01: The struggles with sin, the struggles with addiction, the struggles with sickness and disease, the struggles with my mindset, the way I view myself, the lies I believed.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I could literally spend 27 minutes and probably not have enough time to list out to you the things God has overcome in my life.
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's probably the same for you.
SPEAKER_01: And I think by doing that, making this memorial, there's nothing that would build your faith more.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Like there's that adage, you can tell where you're going if you look back at where you've been.
SPEAKER_01: Like it kind of gives you an angle of trajectory.
SPEAKER_01: And when I look back at all of the things God has done in my life, in my family's life, in the churches I've been a part of, even in this church for the last three years, I mean, I see a trajectory of victory that we're heading into.
SPEAKER_01: Where people can lose hope.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it reminds me of when uh Jesus and the disciples were in this boat, and he's telling them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
SPEAKER_01: And they think he's talking about bread.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Don't you remember?
SPEAKER_01: Didn't you see?
SPEAKER_01: Didn't you hear?
SPEAKER_01: And don't you remember when I multiplied the food for the 5,000?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about bread.
SPEAKER_01: But they were not able to discern the spiritual teaching that he was given to them because they were still in fear, and Jesus gave them this strategy to break through fear and into hope and faith by looking at what he's done in your life before.
SPEAKER_01: And when you look at what the goodness of God in your history, in your past, man, it's really hard not to believe him for the things that he's calling you into in your future, even when they seem really, really impossible.
SPEAKER_01: He's the God of the impossible.
SPEAKER_01: It's just who he is.
SPEAKER_01: And it's actually his goodness that he calls us into areas of conflict and battles.
SPEAKER_01: Because if we didn't have to fight for it, we wouldn't need faith.
SPEAKER_01: And without faith, it's impossible to please God, but with faith is how we inherit his promises.
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty awesome.
SPEAKER_01: You have no idea how many times people told me you're always gonna struggle with that, and now I don't.
SPEAKER_01: Like pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm not saying I don't struggle.
SPEAKER_01: Hear me.
SPEAKER_01: We all have a struggle.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to be in struggle.
SPEAKER_01: That's actually what this life is designed for us.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to go through testing and trial and tribulation and suffering, and it actually qualifies us to receive an inheritance from God.
SPEAKER_01: But we're not supposed to struggle with the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and then die and go to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to lean on Him, not our own understanding, and walk into victory after victory after victory.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's, you know, we say a lot here, it's two steps forward and one step back.
SPEAKER_01: We face a lot of battles, but we're on the winning team.
SPEAKER_01: You win some, you lose some, but we're on the winning team.
SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, his will for your life is to overcome and walk in freedom, not to be stuck.
SPEAKER_01: Is this making sense?
SPEAKER_01: Great.
SPEAKER_01: So let's go into chapter 13.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just gonna read these first seven verses, and then I'm gonna talk about inheritance, and I'm gonna talk about how we inherit promises.
SPEAKER_01: So chapter 13, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Now Joshua was old, advanced in years, and the Lord said to him, You are old, advanced in years.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you really, you know you're old when that happens.
SPEAKER_01: It's like Joshua's looking in the mirror and he goes, Man, I'm getting old.
SPEAKER_01: And then the voice of the Lord comes, Joshua, you are old.
SPEAKER_01: Like, wow, confirmation.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But I love this phrase.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You're old, advanced in years, and there remains very much land yet to be possessed.
SPEAKER_01: Whew, that's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01: And he started leading them when he was 80.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna die when he's 110.
SPEAKER_01: And that's 30 years of just defeating enemies over and over, leading them in victory after victory.
SPEAKER_01: But there's still land to be possessed.
SPEAKER_01: And we know historically that Israel actually never did possess the full promised land.
SPEAKER_01: They never have.
SPEAKER_01: And uh I think that even that's a picture of the Christian walk.
SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of us, I don't think anybody really possesses the full inheritance that God had for them on this side of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: But that's our goal, like that's what we're striving for, and that's God's goal for our life.
SPEAKER_01: There's still, no matter where you're at, there's still land to be possessed.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: This is the land that yet remains.
SPEAKER_01: All the territory of the Philistines and all that of the Gesherites from Sihor, which is east of Egypt, as far as the border of Ekron northward, which is counted as Canaanite, the five lords of the Philistines, the Gazites, the Ashdodites, the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, the Ekronites, the Avites, from the south, all the land of the Canaanites and Miriah that belongs to the Sidonians, as far as Aphek, to the border of the Amorites, the land of the Gebelites and Lebanon, toward the sunrise from Baalgad below Mount Hermon, as far as the entrance to Hamath, all the inhabitants of the mountains from Lebanon, as far as the brook Misrafoth, and all the Sidonians, them I will drive out from before the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to read that again.
SPEAKER_01: Then I will drive out from before the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Only divide it by lot to Israel as an inheritance, as I have commanded you.
SPEAKER_01: Now therefore, divide this land as an inheritance to the nine tribes and the half tribe of Manasseh, the other half.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua is receiving this list of all of the enemies that need to be overcome, and also a list of the inheritance and how he's supposed to divide it.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like God's giving him a map, and he's writing it down because he's old and advanced in years, and he's gonna die, and this is what's gonna be the marching orders for Israel after his death.
SPEAKER_01: They're supposed to defeat all of these enemies, and God is saying, I'm gonna drive them out.
SPEAKER_01: And we know as we continue through the history of Israel that they don't do as well without Joshua as they did with him.
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's it's pretty incredible in the case of Joshua and Caleb that they started as slaves, and this is how Joshua's finishing.
SPEAKER_01: He's defeated 31 kings, him and Moses, and now he's distributing an inheritance to millions of people.
SPEAKER_01: And man, I just want to be that way.
SPEAKER_01: I want the road to be that way.
SPEAKER_01: I want us not to just get out of slavery, right?
SPEAKER_01: They didn't just get out of Egypt and cross the Red Sea, but also go through the seasons of testing and trial in the wilderness, get across the Jordan into the promised land, defeat 31 nations, and then distribute that as a heritage to the next generation.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that is incredible.
SPEAKER_01: He Joshua and Caleb, I love in uh the beginning of Pastor Steve's book on Breakthrough Courage, where he talks about Joshua growing up seeing the scars, the stripes on his dad's back.
SPEAKER_01: Like that's what he grew up in.
SPEAKER_01: And so many of us spend a lot of time, and I think it's healthy to do this, looking at our past, looking at our upbringing so that we can understand what we're struggling with, but we're not supposed to stay there.
SPEAKER_01: We're not supposed to stay in that wilderness of reminiscing on all of the negative things that happened to us.
SPEAKER_01: We're actually supposed to graduate out of that and overcome it and to where it invades our thinking.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua and Caleb didn't just get free from Egypt physically, they got free from Egypt mentally.
SPEAKER_01: To the degree that they walked as overcomers for the rest of their life.
SPEAKER_01: The rest of their life.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, to 110 years old, you're killing, you're smashing scorpions and snakes till you're 110 years old.
SPEAKER_01: I want that to be my story.
SPEAKER_01: So that I can distribute an inheritance to this next generation, to Gen Z, to Gen Y and X.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've been paying attention to the news, but we're in the middle of the next generation giving their hearts to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've got podcasts with Joe Rogan and Andrew Schultz, who I would not recommend listening to either one of those guys just because of the profanity and how filthy-minded they are, and they're on a podcast talking about the canonization of scripture and going, man, we really need to call Wesley Huff to understand how they came up with all this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Like they're fascinated with the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: These guys that are so worldly in their thinking, and they're on the Joe Rogan podcast talking about scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Like we're in a different season, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: It's time to make hay while the sun is shining.
SPEAKER_01: And we've been seeing people in this church encountering the power of God and getting healed, getting set free, experiencing his love, experiencing the fire of the Lord, experiencing the electricity of the Lord, and it's literal physical manifestations in their body.
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't happen, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: We're in something that's fresh.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to beg you.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like Paul, where he says, I beg of you on behalf of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Be reconciled with God.
SPEAKER_01: I'm begging you on behalf of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss out on what God is doing right now, on what God is doing this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Get everything you can out of it.
SPEAKER_01: Zechariah 10.
SPEAKER_01: Ask for rain in the season of rain.
SPEAKER_01: Who knows how much he wants to pour out on this church?
SPEAKER_01: Who knows how much he wants to pour out on Colorado Springs in El Paso County?
SPEAKER_01: Let's not sit back and patiently wait and see what God wants to do.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pull on the edge of his garment and see how many gifts might fall out.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's not in my notes.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just really excited.
SPEAKER_01: So inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Inheritance is, this word inheritance is going to be used a whole bunch of times in the rest of the book of Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: And inheritance is both a gift and a responsibility.
SPEAKER_01: It's given by divine decree, but must be possessed through faith and obedience.
SPEAKER_01: So God grants an inheritance, and then we possess the inheritance, and then the next generation receives the inheritance as a heritage.
SPEAKER_01: So God grants the inheritance through decree.
SPEAKER_01: I will drive them out before you.
SPEAKER_01: The giant that you're facing right now.
SPEAKER_01: That victory that you're gonna get, it doesn't look like you're getting a victory right now, but he will drive them out before you.
SPEAKER_01: And that victory that you get, you get to pass on.
SPEAKER_01: It's for more than just you.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, freely you've received, therefore, freely give.
SPEAKER_01: You get to distribute your victory to other people.
SPEAKER_01: Man, that is exciting.
SPEAKER_01: Look at these other verses about inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Acts 20, verse 32.
SPEAKER_01: The word of his grace is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
SPEAKER_01: So this is not just a normal book.
SPEAKER_01: His word builds you up spiritually, not just making you smarter.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just knowing things, it also can give you an inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: His word.
SPEAKER_01: Knowing his word, hearing his word.
SPEAKER_01: It can give you an inheritance that can become your heritage.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 1.
SPEAKER_01: You know, verses 13 and 14, it talks about the Holy Spirit being the down payment of our inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: And then in verse 18 and 19, Paul's praying and he says, I want the eyes of your understanding to be enlightened so that you will know the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.
SPEAKER_01: It's in you.
SPEAKER_01: You're his inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: But you're also a co-heir with him of his inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 2, ask of me, I'll give you the nations as an inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what's the limit?
SPEAKER_01: I can't see one.
SPEAKER_01: What is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe?
SPEAKER_01: We need our eyes enlightened for that.
SPEAKER_01: Colossians 1.
SPEAKER_01: He has another prayer, and he finishes it, says, I'm giving thanks to the Father who's qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.
SPEAKER_01: So the title of my message, now that I'm almost done with it, is uh Enemies Preserve the Promise.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_01: Enemies preserve the promise.
SPEAKER_01: In Exodus 23, verses 29 through 30, God said to the Israelites, I'm not going to drive these enemies out before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you.
SPEAKER_01: But little by little, verse 30, I will drive them out from before you until you have increased and you inherit the land.
SPEAKER_01: So why do the enemies remain?
SPEAKER_01: Your struggles become weapons of warfare and testimonies of breakthrough.
SPEAKER_01: Your promised land is often the very place you face your fiercest battles.
SPEAKER_01: You're in a struggle?
SPEAKER_01: I think you just found one of God's promises.
SPEAKER_01: David killed Goliath, but Solomon never faced one.
SPEAKER_01: Promises without maturity would crush us, and so God gives them in stages to us because we grow in stature and so possess those promises.
SPEAKER_01: It's training.
SPEAKER_01: It's like going to the gym.
SPEAKER_01: See, enemies in the land, he said, if I drove them out in a year, the land would become desolate and the piece of the field will become too numerous.
SPEAKER_01: So the enemies preserved the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: They were there for the Israelites to defeat.
SPEAKER_01: That's a different perspective, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: When you view your struggle as something that's for you, when you have a battle that's actually for you, because it's making you into the person that can actually steward the gift of God.
SPEAKER_01: See, God puts us in these trials and tribulations.
SPEAKER_01: He allows us to partner with him in battle because battle is supposed to be how we are trained to inherit it his promises.
SPEAKER_01: And it's really what happened to Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_01: He gets baptized by John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit rips open the heavenlies and descends like a dove upon him, and then he goes into his kingdom and lives happily ever after.
SPEAKER_01: It's not what it says.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew 4 says, then the Holy Spirit drove him, that means like to compel, like push.
SPEAKER_01: Like it wasn't this dove that was floating around, Jesus, let's go to the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: No, it says he compelled him into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.
SPEAKER_01: And then he told him, Don't eat for 40 days.
SPEAKER_01: And when Jesus had become hungry, then the battle started.
SPEAKER_01: But what the enemy didn't know is that Jesus, and so do we, do our best fighting when we're hungry.
SPEAKER_01: We do our best fighting when we're hungry.
SPEAKER_01: Like, this is a cool verse.
SPEAKER_01: I've been really excited about this verse.
SPEAKER_01: Numbers 14, 9.
SPEAKER_01: It says, do not rebel against the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So he's talking about when you go into the promised land, don't rebel against the Lord, which is what they did.
SPEAKER_01: That's why they're in the wilderness for 40 years.
SPEAKER_01: Nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like obsessed with this verse right now.
SPEAKER_01: I keep reading it over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_01: Don't rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread.
SPEAKER_01: Their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us.
SPEAKER_01: Do not fear them.
SPEAKER_01: So for the Israelites, he was talking about these nations.
SPEAKER_01: But for us, he's talking about demons.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about snakes and scorpions.
SPEAKER_01: It's like crocodile dundee grabs that snake by the head and rips him, and that became dinner.
SPEAKER_01: I know it's real violent, but this is the road church, so I know I can get away with it.
SPEAKER_01: These enemies are your bread.
SPEAKER_01: These battles are your breakfast.
SPEAKER_01: The struggle that you're in, the thing that you're fighting against, it's feeding you.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Remember Psalm 23?
SPEAKER_01: He sets a table before us in the presence of our enemies.
SPEAKER_01: So I see God way out in the distance, all these scary stuff, and God's out there with a table ringing the dinner bell.
SPEAKER_01: Come on in, it's time to eat.
SPEAKER_01: What's for dinner?
SPEAKER_01: Enemies, battles, giants, snakes, and scorpions, struggle.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just excited, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: Like, this is a good word.
SPEAKER_01: This is a good word.
SPEAKER_01: The enemies you face, sickness, depression, financial strain, addiction, etc., become your bread.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Remember what Joseph said to his brothers?
SPEAKER_01: As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive.
SPEAKER_01: Man.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 8 28.
SPEAKER_01: We know all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_01: So what the enemy meant for evil, God turns it into supper.
SPEAKER_01: Giants are our bread, battles are our breakfast, breakthrough courage is our middle name.
unknown: Come on, come on.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: Here at the road, it's snake and scorpion squashing season.
SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of you guys are hunting.
SPEAKER_01: I think there's even some people that are coming back from hunting today.
SPEAKER_01: But uh, here at the road, it's it's not just elk season, it's snake and scorpion season.
SPEAKER_01: It's two steps forward, one step back, but the gates of hell will not prevail.
SPEAKER_01: You win some battles, you lose some battles, but we're on the winning team, and we're taking ground in Colorado Springs, El Paso County, and the nations.
SPEAKER_01: So just think, just think, you guys, the bear that you're battling right now might be the bearskin rug that your kids get to play on.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know about you, I want one in every room of my house.
SPEAKER_01: I want a bear skin rug, I want a lion skin rug, I want some a snakeskin pair of boots that I can give to my kids.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm not talking about being demon hunters.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about sitting at the table with the Lord in the presence of your enemies and eating and being filled.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think there's much fruit to be had from self-effort, but I do believe that every area I submit to the Lordship of Jesus is an area of willable freedom that I get to possess, master, and distribute.
SPEAKER_01: See, a Joshua type people are those who distribute the inheritance of God.
SPEAKER_01: And I think God is raising up a Joshua type people in this church, and outside of this church too, in this region, a Joshua type people that distribute the inheritance of God.
SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_01: Laying your hands on the sick, distributing healing.
SPEAKER_01: Laying your hands on people, asking the Lord for a baptism in fire in the Holy Spirit, the activation of gifts, the activation of callings, launching people into the nations.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to distribute the gifts of God.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's who Pastor Steve is.
SPEAKER_01: He's a distributor of the gifts of God.
SPEAKER_01: I think we've got a team of people at this church that God wants to launch, and but before he can launch us, he's got to train us through battles that then become the food that nourishes us for our victory.
SPEAKER_01: So we submit to God, right?
SPEAKER_01: James said, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
SPEAKER_01: That word resist, it means to actively fight against.
SPEAKER_01: So it's both.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not just sitting in the recliner, waiting for the Lord to defeat my enemies, but I'm also not striving out of legalism and self-effort.
SPEAKER_01: I'm submitting to God, leaning on him, not my own understanding.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna guide my steps.
SPEAKER_01: Leaning on him, I'm clinging to him, I'm submitting to him, but I'm also doing the work.
SPEAKER_01: I'm also studying scripture, I'm also at prayer meetings.
SPEAKER_01: I'm praying in tongues, I'm praying in English, I'm singing in tongues, I'm singing in English, I'm asking God for interpretation, I'm asking God for grace, I'm asking him for faith, I'm asking him to remind me again today of all of those things you did in my past so that I can believe you can do the things that you're calling me to in my future.
SPEAKER_01: But it's not just for me, it's for we.
SPEAKER_01: It's for us.
SPEAKER_01: And I think God is calling this church to be a Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: That we're supposed to possess the promises of God for this season and for this region and distribute them at Chipotle, at King Supers, at the prayer meetings we do, at all of the different gatherings we do.
SPEAKER_01: So I just want to encourage you guys, as we're wrapping up, and I think God is in the business of finding every area of disappointing, disappointment, and breathing hope back into it.
SPEAKER_01: So let's just take let's just take this time right now.
SPEAKER_01: Want you to start thinking about what are the kings?
SPEAKER_01: There's 31 kings in chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: What are the kings in your life?
SPEAKER_01: They look really intimidating, but if we can reframe our perspective and see that conflict as our next meal, they are your bread.
SPEAKER_01: What are those kings in your life?
SPEAKER_01: What are those kings in your family's life?
SPEAKER_01: In your business?
SPEAKER_01: Just ask the Lord, ask the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, show me what's the principality that you're called that you're setting a table right in the middle of?
SPEAKER_01: What's the power?
SPEAKER_01: What's the ruler of this present age?
SPEAKER_01: What's the struggle that I need to overcome that's actually a promise dressed up like an enemy?
SPEAKER_01: What are the areas of agonizing defeat that maybe you've chosen to numb out that God wants you to dream about again?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: That's theroad.org.