SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.
SPEAKER_01: I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_01: Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Born for War podcast.
SPEAKER_01: So we are uh we're doing something different today.
SPEAKER_01: We're we're moving away from looking at the book.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't cover all the chapters, but we looked at different parts of the book.
SPEAKER_01: But now we're we're preparing ourselves for the book of Joshua, one of my favorite books in the Bible, and definitely one of my favorite books in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: I've decided to entitle this series, Courage to Possess the Promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: So courage to possess the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: It takes courage to possess what is yours.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_01: It takes courage to possess what God's already given you.
SPEAKER_01: And yet most believers don't experience the inheritance that God has for them.
SPEAKER_01: And so the book of Joshua is kind of how to do that in a pictorial form, in story form.
SPEAKER_01: It's about how to possess the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Pacific during World War II, said that Joshua was one of the great generals of the world.
SPEAKER_01: So he had studied extensively, and actually Douglas MacArthur was a man of God's word, and he studied Joshua, and he said he's one of the great generals of antiquity.
SPEAKER_01: President Theodore Roosevelt loved the book of Joshua and often used the book of Joshua in his speeches.
SPEAKER_01: He talked about the book of Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: He appreciated the courage of Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: And if you know anything about Teddy Roosevelt, you know that he was one of our most courageous presidents.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua gave Teddy Roosevelt strength.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua gave Douglas MacArthur strength.
SPEAKER_01: And I could go through a litany of great men and women throughout history who have loved the book of Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua is interesting on a number of fronts, but first of all, it is the first historical book of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: It's the first historical book.
SPEAKER_01: So the first five books is called the Pentateuch or the Law in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And that's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua begins, it's a bridge book.
SPEAKER_01: It's a bridge book from the law into history, into the historical works of God in the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And it is the first book named after someone.
SPEAKER_01: So it's the first book in the Bible named after someone.
SPEAKER_01: And that name, Joshua, is really, really important.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna cover that just a little bit today, but I'll talk more about it when we actually dive into Joshua next week.
SPEAKER_01: But the Bible is divided into two parts.
SPEAKER_01: So there's what we call an Old Testament and there's a New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, the 66 books in total, but there's an Old Testament and a New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Old Testament is always a prophetic type, okay, in story form of the spiritual realities found in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to give you three aspects or three things we can learn from Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: So looking at Joshua as a prophetic book, a type of possessing God's promises, let me give you three aspects.
SPEAKER_01: There's probably ten, but I feel like three are the most important.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, Joshua is about spiritual inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua, the book of Joshua, is about spiritual inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua is literally gonna lead the people of Israel into what?
SPEAKER_01: The promised land.
SPEAKER_01: So God has promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob this land.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua is actually gonna be the leader that leads them in.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 15, we read these words.
SPEAKER_01: For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.
SPEAKER_01: So that's always the purpose of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the purpose of Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: That first of all, it's about our spiritual inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: And if I were to compare Joshua to any book of the New Testament, it would be the book of Ephesians.
SPEAKER_01: So, in a sense, Joshua is prophetic of what we read about in the book of Ephesians.
SPEAKER_01: So in Ephesians chapter 1, in giving a thesis of the book of Ephesians, Paul writes this in him, meaning Christ, you trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory.
SPEAKER_01: So I often say that the Old Testament is concealed to what the New Testament is revealed.
SPEAKER_01: So what we see in story form in the Old Testament is the spiritual principles of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua is a picture of Ephesians.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: And that's really important because Ephesians talks about our inheritance spiritually, but Joshua talks about our inheritance literally in story form.
SPEAKER_01: So number one, it's about spiritual inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, Joshua is about war and spiritual warfare.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua is about war and spiritual battles in our life.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody here know that this life has a lot of spiritual battles?
SPEAKER_01: How many of you know that in Washington right now there's a war going on between good and evil?
SPEAKER_01: There's a war going on with spiritual powers at work, okay?
SPEAKER_01: How many know that in Denver right now, at the Capitol, there's a war going on?
SPEAKER_01: And I've been asked on April the 4th to go and do the opening prayer before Congress in Denver.
SPEAKER_01: And if any of you guys want to come with me, I would love to pack out the gallery with roadsters.
SPEAKER_01: So love to have you because when I was asked to do that, one of the representatives who, uh Rebecca Kelsey, who comes to the road, told me, you will feel it, Steve, when you walk in the room, the darkness and the spiritual battle going on.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, come on, bring it on.
SPEAKER_01: I can't wait.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be so exciting.
SPEAKER_01: So if you'd like to, let me know.
SPEAKER_01: I think I have to be up there at I have to pray at 9 a.m.
SPEAKER_01: So we'd have to leave early.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're interested in that, um, you can call the office, let us know.
SPEAKER_01: We could all meet here early and and head up.
SPEAKER_01: It'll be a fun time.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you know that opportunities are disguised as obstacles?
SPEAKER_01: Opportunities are disguised as obstacles.
SPEAKER_01: And so for some of us, we're on the Jordan River.
SPEAKER_01: Just like Joshua, we're on the Jordan River and we're full of fear.
SPEAKER_01: And we're frightened about our future, we're frightened about our economics, or we might be concerned about our marriage, or concerned about some relationships we're in, or concerned about a big decision that we need to make.
SPEAKER_01: You're on that Jordan River and it seems risky.
SPEAKER_01: That's how Joshua felt.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna see next week in chapter one, he has to be told four times to be strong and courageous.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna show you in Deuteronomy that Moses had to tell him three times to be strong and courageous.
SPEAKER_01: You don't keep telling someone to be strong and courageous if they are.
SPEAKER_01: And some of us, we don't feel very strong and courageous.
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand if a pretty inordinate amount of time you don't feel very strong and courageous.
SPEAKER_01: All right, well, welcome to the party.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's the life we live, that's the spiritual battles we're in.
SPEAKER_01: And Joshua's gonna teach us a lot about how to have breakthrough courage through holding on to, believing in the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: I think I find it interesting that, again, back to Ephesians, that Ephesians chapter 1 is telling us of this inheritance that we have through the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: But what's chapter 6 about?
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 6 is about spiritual battle.
SPEAKER_01: It's probably one of the most prolific passages in all of the Bible on spiritual battle, Ephesians 6, 10 through 18.
SPEAKER_01: So just like Ephesians, the nation of Israel, yeah, they're excited.
SPEAKER_01: God's saying, you're going in, you're gonna take the land, and you're going to inherit the land.
SPEAKER_01: I've promised it to you.
SPEAKER_01: It is yours.
SPEAKER_01: It's been given to you.
SPEAKER_01: But they but there's just some fine print.
SPEAKER_01: The fine print is be strong and courageous because you're gonna have to fight for it.
SPEAKER_01: Church, you have to fight for your inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's given, but the enemy wants to take it back.
SPEAKER_01: The enemy wants to steal it back.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have to fight for it.
SPEAKER_01: And the book of Joshua is about the war and the fight that we are in.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly, Joshua is about spirit-filled courage.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua is about spirit-filled courage.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua is a type of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: His name, which means Yahweh is salvation, is a Hebrew equivalent to the Greek Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So if you had heard a little boy running around the village named Joshua, it would have sounded the same in Hebrew as Jesus Yeshua.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus is your leader.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua is our leader.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua is a prototype, Joshua is a prophetic type.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua is an image of a real man who really lived under Moses, who represents Jesus 3,000 years ago.
SPEAKER_01: You're not going in with the courage to possess the promises of God without Jesus in the lead.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus in the lead.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua, just before he's going to go into Jericho, remember?
SPEAKER_01: Suddenly what appears before him, we believe is a pre-incarnate Christ, built like, dressed like a warrior.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua's so fearful, so concerned.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Are you for us or against us?
SPEAKER_01: And I believe it was Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It was Jesus meeting Yesus.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, get ready, because it's not about me being on your side, it's about you being on my side.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll lead you in, and I will give you victory after victory.
SPEAKER_01: So this is the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that we're going to go into.
SPEAKER_01: But Joshua and this new generation, it's a new generation of Israelites are going to have to take the land, and they will have to fight for every inch of it.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to see that there are the descendants of the Nephilim, Genesis 6, those sons of God that came down and mated with the daughters of men in Genesis 6, 1 through 4, one of those cryptic, mysterious passages of the Old Testament, you will see that there will be a call upon Joshua and the nation of Israel to actually go in where there are giants in the land that have never been upended, that have built whole towns and villages built on these spiritual, demonic people that God's going to call Joshua to completely wipe out.
SPEAKER_01: You see, if you don't understand that, if you don't understand that spiritual principle in Joshua, it's confusing.
SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes Joshua and the nation of Israel are told to go in and take a village or to take a town.
SPEAKER_01: Other times they're to go in and wipe everybody out, even the animals.
SPEAKER_01: Wipe everything out.
SPEAKER_01: Well, what's the difference?
SPEAKER_01: The difference is the spiritual powers behind one and not the other.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, men and women, in your life, you have to wipe the entire thing out.
SPEAKER_01: You do.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know men and women, some of you in this room, this is true of.
SPEAKER_01: You have been a drunk.
SPEAKER_01: You've been addicted to alcohol.
SPEAKER_01: You can't handle even a drop of alcohol.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta wipe the whole thing out.
SPEAKER_01: You can't drink.
SPEAKER_01: Same with other things related to images on a screen or whatever it might be, church.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are, well, you're already born liars.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so every one of us in this room are born liars.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we do, we lie.
SPEAKER_01: But some of you have a stronghold of lying.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: You lie.
SPEAKER_01: You've built your whole life around lying.
SPEAKER_01: And God's calling you to be a truth teller.
SPEAKER_01: God's telling you to actually start getting set free by telling the truth.
SPEAKER_01: And so for you, because it's such a stronghold, you have to be aware every day I'm gonna tell the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe not the way Jim Carrey does it, but you're gonna, okay, you're gonna tell the truth in all that you do.
SPEAKER_01: You have to wipe out the line.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes the spiritual truths of our lives to possess the promises of God take incredible courage, spirit-filled courage in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua's gonna have to risk all.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna have to step out.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna have to leave the past behind and not be just an associate of Moses.
SPEAKER_01: He's now the leader.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't have his mentor anymore.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna have to step out and it's gonna take strength and courage.
SPEAKER_01: And so it is in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: We need strength and courage.
SPEAKER_01: There's so many things, church, that I have faced over the years that I know I can't do it on my own.
SPEAKER_01: And it's absolutely not because of I'm a coward, it's because I know I can't do it alone.
SPEAKER_01: I just know I don't have it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not smart enough, I'm not wise enough, I don't have enough experience, and so I have to trust God and walk in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Joshua's about.
SPEAKER_01: In 1 Corinthians 10, we read these things happened to them, meaning those men and women of the Old Testament, as examples and were written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.
SPEAKER_01: So we have the beauty of being able to look now from the age of the church back and see in Joshua principles that apply to our lives today.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I battled this back and forth for weeks, and this is where I landed, in that I wanted to just go right into Joshua because Joshua's so exciting.
SPEAKER_01: But I kept feeling led by the Spirit to cover a passage in Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_01: Because there's this passage in Deuteronomy that Moses needed to speak to Israel about before he died.
SPEAKER_01: So this is kind of Moses' last will and testament of what he believed in was the key to them going into Canaan, where there were gonna be so many temptations.
SPEAKER_01: So many temptations toward materialism, so many temptations toward idolatry, so many sexual temptations that were gonna come their way.
SPEAKER_01: And what he's about to say to us is that you've got to remember that all success is related to spiritual power coming from God.
SPEAKER_01: This is the same thing that Alexander Solsenitsyn, the great Russian dissident, said as he was exiting Russia, he was being kicked out of Soviet Russia, and he said these words, and they're prophetic for us today.
SPEAKER_01: The strength or weakness of a society, and we could say for an individual, depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialization.
SPEAKER_01: Neither a market economy nor even general abundance constitutes the crowning achievement of human life.
SPEAKER_01: If a nation's spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse by the most perfect government structure or by any industrial development.
SPEAKER_01: A tree with a rotten core cannot stand.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Moses is about to tell us.
SPEAKER_01: Moses is going to say the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: And for us today, here at the road church, what we're going to read is for you as an individual.
SPEAKER_01: I've lived my life believing what I'm about to read to you when I first discovered it so many years ago.
SPEAKER_01: I've gone back to it many, many times.
SPEAKER_01: Never taught on it.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to briefly look at it today.
SPEAKER_01: And I would, and I'm quoting Dennis Prager, the conservative radio commentator.
SPEAKER_01: This is the most audacious promise in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Folks, this is the most audacious promise in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Write that if you're taking note, most audacious promise in all of the Bible, and now turn to Deuteronomy 28.
SPEAKER_01: So, Moses, before they're going to cross the Jordan River, wants them to understand the most audacious promise in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: The greatest leader in Israel's history is saying it doesn't matter how strong you are militarily, it doesn't matter how strong you are economically, it doesn't matter what strategies you use for battle, this actually is the key.
SPEAKER_01: This is the key to your success.
SPEAKER_01: And men and women, doesn't matter the size of your bank account, doesn't matter what school you went to or how well you're trained or how skilled you are, whether you have a high IQ or a high EQ, this, what we're about to read, is what really matters.
SPEAKER_01: This is where success and blessing from God comes from.
SPEAKER_01: Now it shall come to pass, verse one, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments, which I am commanding you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2, and all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed shall you be in the city.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed shall you be in the country.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face.
SPEAKER_01: They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand.
SPEAKER_01: And he will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord will establish you as a holy people to himself, just As he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord will open to you his good treasure in the heavens to give the reign to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand.
SPEAKER_01: You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail.
SPEAKER_01: You shall be above only and not beneath.
SPEAKER_01: If you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them.
SPEAKER_01: So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
SPEAKER_01: Guys, that is so audacious.
SPEAKER_01: That's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: That means that if you're struggling and battling in relationships, do it God's way.
SPEAKER_01: If you're struggling financially, do it God's way.
SPEAKER_01: If you're looking at a job situation, ask God.
SPEAKER_01: Do it God's way.
SPEAKER_01: He promises blessings.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I love the story of Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: I wish we had time to go into Abraham right now.
SPEAKER_01: Abraham goes in, he leaves Ur of Chaldees, he leaves his land to come to this promised land.
SPEAKER_01: This Canaan, he's like a Bedouin shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: He travels and he goes around, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And remember, he comes in, he comes into Canaan, and there is a famine.
SPEAKER_01: And then if you read the whole story during the famine, Lot is the one who wants to go to Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: And Abraham gives him the option.
SPEAKER_01: He goes to where the riches are, he goes to Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: Abraham doesn't, but who's got all the possessions?
SPEAKER_01: Who's got all the herds?
SPEAKER_01: And who does the rescuing?
SPEAKER_01: Adam.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Abraham does.
SPEAKER_01: He comes through, he comes through a time of great economic famine, richer than ever.
SPEAKER_01: You say, well, Steve, are you becoming a health and wealth preacher and that we can expect all these blessings from God?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: What I mean by that, what I mean by that is following what he says here, obeying God.
SPEAKER_01: It always works, gang.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I hammered this into our kids as they were growing up.
SPEAKER_01: You obey God, you're gonna get blessed.
SPEAKER_01: It may not be in the short term, but it'll always be in the long term.
SPEAKER_01: And there will always be a battle to be blessed by God because it's a battle to possess the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: The battle.
SPEAKER_01: And so many times we quit, right?
SPEAKER_01: I do too.
SPEAKER_01: I quit.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm always, I'm always regretful of those decisions in my life.
SPEAKER_01: Dennis Prager, the conservative radio talk show commentator and a committed Jew, says of this about Deuteronomy 28.
SPEAKER_01: Quote, this may be the most audacious prediction in history.
SPEAKER_01: 3,000 years ago, a tiny, insignificant group of ex-slaves was told it would one day be set high above all the nations of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Yet that is exactly what happened.
SPEAKER_01: No group has influenced the world more than the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: Christians have influenced more people, but Christianity is based on the Torah, the law, and the rest of the Hebrew Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It teaches the divinity and messiahship of a religious Jew, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And its testaments are written by Jews.
SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
SPEAKER_01: Seems like we're always talking about Israel.
SPEAKER_01: We're always talking about the Middle East.
SPEAKER_01: It's the issue, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's like at the core and the center of all foreign policy because God raised up this obstinate, rebellious people, and yet they gave us the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: They gave us the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: That's what's audacious, is that this rebellious nation of Israel gave us the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: It's not that Israel is a superior nation as much as Israel gave us a superior book called the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I've asked Jay Inman to do this series on the Bible that's coming up in a couple weeks during the second service.
SPEAKER_01: On how we got our Bible.
SPEAKER_01: How do we know the difference between the Bible that we have, the canon of scripture, and the Gnostic Gospels?
SPEAKER_01: How do we know what's fake and what's real?
SPEAKER_01: How did we get our Bible?
SPEAKER_01: That's all coming up.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's so important at the road, church, that we are a people of the book.
SPEAKER_01: We have to be a people of the book.
SPEAKER_01: We are word and spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And so Dennis Prager gets it right here.
SPEAKER_01: And this was the passage that the pilgrims read.
SPEAKER_01: This is what John Winthrop read.
SPEAKER_01: And he said to this group in Scrooby, England, I wonder if God might want to raise up a new nation in that new frontier across the sea called America.
SPEAKER_01: And they believed Deuteronomy 28 was true.
SPEAKER_01: Because they had experienced so much even in England at that time.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 15.
SPEAKER_01: But it shall come to pass if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.
SPEAKER_01: Cursed shall you be in the city, cursed shall you be in the country.
SPEAKER_01: Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
SPEAKER_01: Cursed shall you be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
SPEAKER_01: Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hands to do, until you are destroyed, and until you perish quickly because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken me.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, I could go on.
SPEAKER_01: There's twice as many cursings as blessings in this chapter.
SPEAKER_01: And I read commentator after commentator about why that is, and there's a lot of different theories about that, but it seems sometimes, there's I guess there's two particular perspectives.
SPEAKER_01: One is we're really hard of hearing.
SPEAKER_01: I actually think that's the reason.
SPEAKER_01: The other is that by repeating it again and again, we're reminded that it really is true.
SPEAKER_01: So many times I've been with people close friends, and they tell me what they're up to, they tell me what they're doing, and I go, it's not gonna work out well for you.
SPEAKER_01: And usually it's in the context of great economic blessing.
SPEAKER_01: Seems like the doors just seem to open for them, the right doors open, the wrong doors close, just blessing, blessing.
SPEAKER_01: And we're talking about it, and I go, that's great for now, but it's going to eventually kill you.
SPEAKER_01: Because you have to take care of your spiritual life and be restored within.
SPEAKER_01: The audacious promise.
SPEAKER_01: Any nation and by implication, any individual that would obey the commands of God, the voice of God, would be so blessed.
SPEAKER_01: Western civilization was built on the Judeo-Christian worldview that has made us the richest and most prosperous nation in the world.
SPEAKER_01: But church, it's a conditional promise.
SPEAKER_01: It says, if, look at verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: If.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 1, it says, if you diligently obey.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: If you heed.
SPEAKER_01: It's conditional.
SPEAKER_01: So God gives us the opportunity to obey his voice if we will.
SPEAKER_01: So the conditions for God's blessing are twofold.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, listen and obey God's voice.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_01: Listen and obey God's voice.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, listen and obey God's voice.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, do what he tells you to do.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, obey the commands of God.
SPEAKER_01: And church, you can't do that unless you're in this book.
SPEAKER_01: Reading God's word, in God's word, letting God's word speak to you.
SPEAKER_01: I wake up every morning, first thing I do is get a glass of water or our adrenaline cocktail, which is coconut water mixed with orange juice with a high-quality salt that we use.
SPEAKER_01: And I mix that together.
SPEAKER_01: I drink that I work out for 30 minutes, and then I open God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Every day.
SPEAKER_01: Open God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: Because I want to be physically powerful and I want to be spiritually powerful.
SPEAKER_01: How about you?
SPEAKER_01: And there's blessing in that.
SPEAKER_01: Tremendous blessing.
SPEAKER_01: So we found my grandmother's Bible in a pile of books the other day.
SPEAKER_01: And we opened it up, and my grandfather, I don't know if you guys remember the story, but my grandfather, who divorced my grandmother because he used to beat her in the 1930s and was a drunk, left her, went to with the flying tigers to Burma during World War II, got sober, came back, and remarried my grandmother.
SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of a cool story.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So the book is 1956.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote this really beautiful little note to her.
SPEAKER_01: But then we flipped through it, and it's like there's not one underlined place.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying she didn't read her Bible, I'm just saying she didn't read this Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And it didn't look weathered at all.
SPEAKER_01: How about you?
SPEAKER_01: Are you opening the book?
SPEAKER_01: Are you reading the book?
SPEAKER_01: Are you saying, God, I gotta hear from you today?
SPEAKER_01: I got a big decision to make at work.
SPEAKER_01: I've got these people at work that drive me crazy.
SPEAKER_01: I have these people at church who drive me crazy.
SPEAKER_01: What do I do?
SPEAKER_01: Show me, guide me, lead me.
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
SPEAKER_01: His voice comes through the book more than any other place.
SPEAKER_01: 95% of everything you need to know is right here.
SPEAKER_01: It's in the book.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need a dream, you don't need a vision, you don't need a warm fuzzy.
SPEAKER_01: You just need to read God's word and he'll speak to you.
SPEAKER_01: Because this is, what do we call it?
SPEAKER_01: The Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is called the Word that became flesh.
SPEAKER_01: So tonight we're gonna have a special prayer meeting.
SPEAKER_01: Because of a dream that Liz had about a month and a half ago.
SPEAKER_01: Some stuff that we believe is pertinent to the next month.
SPEAKER_01: That's something we believe is coming down that's a counter move of the enemy against what's happening right now in Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not gonna share it here.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna share it tonight and then we're gonna pray because it's pretty serious stuff.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to let you know if you can come tonight at 6 p.m., we're gonna call it breakthrough prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna we're gonna pray.
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't want you to be frightened, but you will be frightened if you don't watch out, encouraged by the power of the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: And then it's exciting.
SPEAKER_01: It's exciting because God's doing it to humble our nation.
SPEAKER_01: God's doing it to prepare us for a great revival that He wants to bring to our country.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Foreign for War podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.