Joshua-Wayne Barber/Part 2
By: Dr. Wayne Barber; ©2004 |
One of the greatest challenges in life is for believers to understand not only what is theirs in Christ, but how to appropriate what you have. |
Joshua 1:6-9
Contents
Be Strong and Take Courage
Turn with me to the book of Joshua. I hope youāre enjoying this as much as I am. I tell you what, I havenāt done the Old Testament in awhile. And itās just going to be a wonderful adventure in the book of Joshua.
Joshua 1, and tonight weāre going to look at verses 6-9. āBe strong and take courage.ā Be strong and take courage. One of the greatest challenges in life for me, and Iām sure for you if youāre trying to share it with others, is for believers to understand not only what is theirs in Christ, but how to appropriate what you have. You ever study one of those ATM machines? And you put your card in. Youāve got money in the bankāhopefullyāand you put your card in to draw it out. Itās your money. Itās in the bank. You put the card in, you pull it out and you wait for the sign to come up. Itās demonic! And it says, āPlease punch in your personal identification code.ā And you canāt remember it. Now, I just want to know, has this happened to anybody but me?
But you just stand there. You feel so stupid. You know, they tell you when you get that personal identification code. They say, āPut this in a place where nobody can get to it.ā And you did; now you canāt even find it. What is yours is yours, but you somehow are not able to get to it. And thatās what weāre going to learn here in Joshua. In the book of Joshua, weāre going to learn to appropriate what God has given to us as we study how they learned to appropriate what God had already given to them.
For 430 years they had been out of their land. God had promised them a land. He gave that promise to Abraham, but theyād been out of that land for 430 years. Thirty years in Egypt had been a peaceful time as the Pharaoh was in good sync with the people. But then something happened. They changed Pharaohs. And the new Pharaoh saw this vast multiplying group, and he began to be threatened by them. So he put them in captivity. And they lived in captivity for 400 years, exactly the way God said it to Abraham back in Genesis 15. Moses is dead now, theyāve come out of Egypt, theyāve crossed the Red Sea, theyāve come through the wilderness, and now itās time. Itās time to enter the land which God had already given to them.
Now, again, we donāt have a land, we have a life in Christ Jesus. But we need to learn how to possess this life. Even though, yes, we have it, let me put it this way: we need to learn how to experience the life that we already have in Christ Jesus. We learned last time in verses 1-5 some helpful things that as we go through life we can begin to better understand whatās going on. We learned in verses 1-5 that God creates a crisis in our life in order to put us in a position to trust Him; to totally depend upon Him.
Now, I want to promise you this. We should be walking by faith. Faith comes from hearing the Word of God. If weāre willing to walk by faith, I want to promise you God will keep us at the point of desperation. You donāt walk by faith until you live by desperation. You see, if everything is going well all the time, weāre prone to drift; and when we drift weāre not walking by faith, and God allows things to come into our life to bring us back to that point to where we depend upon Him. God put Joshua in a crisis right away, just after Moses had died. He puts him right into a crisis. In verse 2, āMoses My servant is dead. Now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all the people to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel.ā
The Jordan River stood between them and the Promised Land; for them to possess the land, for them to enter the land they already had, they had to cross that Jordan River. But in 3:15 we saw the last time that the Jordan River was flooded. This was not the time to cross the river. This is the worst time it could be. Talk about a crisis! A flooded river. It was after the spring harvest and the snow had melted on Mt. Lebanon and had drained down to the river and the river was out of its banks. I mean, āLord, donāt You understand? You donāt cross a river at flood stage.ā
But God picked that time to tell them it was time to cross the river. God could have waited to another time, when the water was within its banks, but He didnāt. Now to relate to this, and hopefully youāve made your drawing connecting some dots here. We must ask ourselves a question: What crisis am I in right now? What has God allowed to come into my life, has driven me to the point that I have no choice but to trust Him? What is God trying to teach me? What is it about Himself that Heās wanting me to experience? See, we donāt look at life that way. This is what causes us to enter what we have. We forget that life is all orchestrated. Some people say, āIs it His perfect will? Is it His permissive will?ā I donāt know! I just know Heās in charge of it. Thatās all I want to know, by the way. I donāt really care who wins the argument, I just want to know Heās in charge. When Iām in the midst of a valley, donāt come to me with whether or not itās His perfect will or His permissive will! Hey, just let me be encouraged that Heās in control, and Heās doing something in my life. You see, God is in me and in you everything that we are not. And for us to experience Him we have to be at the end of ourselves, to where weāre desperate enough to cry out to Him.
But, not only does God create a crisis, but we also learned that God doesnāt let us experience all that we have at one time. He doesnāt let us do that. I just wish He would, but Iām not so sure we could stand it. On the Mount of Transfiguration, just a little bit of His glory seeped out, and it just overwhelmed the three apostles that were there. And He just gave them a peek. We donāt get to experience what Heās given us in Himself. He lets us enter a little bit at a time. He says in the end of verse 2: āYou and all this people, I want you to take them across this Jordan to the land which I am giving to the sons of Israel.ā It was theirs, but they could only enter it as they are willing to obey Him. Only to the degree that they were willing to walk by faith could they enter what they already had.
He says in verse 3: āEvery place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you just as I spoke to Moses.ā God just simply told Moses what He tells us in the New Testament, in the new covenant. He just simply says walk by faith. Walk by faith. Faith is trusting God; forsaking all, I trust Him. You walk yielded in surrender to Him. And if youāll do that, then every step that you take, you begin to experience what you already had but didnāt even realize it. Thatās the journey.
We also learned that no one can take from us what God has given to us. He says in verse 5, āNo man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you. I will not fail you [these are beautiful words] or forsake you.ā I wonāt abandon you, I wonāt drop you. I didnāt bring you this far to teach you how to swim to drown you. Iām going to be there to carry you through. What a beautiful promise. Be careful when, sometimesāand Iāve done itāin frustration you carelessly say: āIāve just lost my joy.ā No, you didnāt lose it; you chose to walk away from it. Because your joy is in a person: the Lord Jesus. And nobody can take that from you, nobody. I just wish sometime I could blame somebody. āItās them, Lord!ā And God says, āNo itās not, itās you. Youāve chosen to take your focus off of me and youāve disinherited yourself for this present moment, from that which you already have.ā Well, be careful with what you say many times about people taking your joy or stealing it. No, no man can take from us what God has given to us.
With the groundwork laid for possessing what is ours today, we move now to verses 6-9. Youāve got to keep connecting these passages. This is not a brand new message based on Scripture thatās isolated from verses 1-5; it all connects. Let me read the passage for you if you want to read silently with me:
Joshua 1:6-9: āBe strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it, to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.ā
Now the key to this whole message is found in the words ābe strong, be courageous.ā And you see it used three different times in three different verses. The word for āstrongā is in a stem. Theyāre called stem in Hebrew and it means ābe becoming strong,ā be growing up, be growing strong. Itās not a onetime thing. Itās to be growing stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger. Itās the strength from within that Heās talking about here. Itās the strength from within that enables us to face whatever lies ahead of us. In fact, the Greek word is so clear; thatās why I love the Greek. The Hebrew is more conceptual. But the Greek is so precise. It is the word ischus, word that means āinherent strength; inward strength.ā
Have you ever been around someone like that? I got on an elevator one time with a pro football player. He was holding his little baby like a teddy bear he won at the fair. He was about three inches taller than me and big as a refrigerator and he didnāt have to do a thing. I just sensed the strength in that man standing on that elevator. It made me feel like a little boy. Thatās what Heās talking about. You be inwardly, inherently strong.
Now, Heās already alluded to the fact in verse 5 that there is going to be opposition. And weāve got to get this in our minds. The warfare was not in the wilderness, the warfare was in Canaan, in the land which God had given to them. Thereās going to be opposition to us, and so therefore what Heās talking about is that no man will be able to stand before you. But theyāre going to try. Theyāre going to try. Youāre going to have some things that youāre going to deal with in order to possess what God says is already yours.
God tells Joshua, āWhen you face those who would take from you what I have given you, be inwardly strong.ā Now that word for courageous is the word meaning to be stout, immovable. I love again the Greek translation, Septuagint, of the Old Testament, and it says it uses the word that says, āact like a man.ā I like that. āJoshua, when you get in the face of opposition, you be strong, son, you be immovable. Act like a man. You face whatās coming to you and you deal with what it is.ā You have to deal with it. The idea of being spiritually fit. It has the idea of being on the alert, being honed, being conscious of what may hinder you, being aware. So in my words, what I would say to get it across is: be growing strong from within, because when you possess what God has given, itās not going to be without opposition. Stand firm in the face of the battle.
Well, how do you do this, Wayne? How do you do this? Many people have said to be many times, āWayne, I wish youād be more practical.ā I always thought I was, but I tell you what, this book is practical from start to finish. The practical part of everything weāve done for two years is right here in Joshua. Itās going to put it together for us, connect the dots, and weāre going to begin to understand what we have been studying for so long.
How do you do this? How do you grow to become strong, to face the opposition that is in front of us? The phrase is used again three times in three verses, and each time itās attached to a principle that kind of frames our outline for what weāre going to talk about tonight. āBe strong, and take courage.ā
Be encouraged by Godās promises
First of all, to grow inwardly strong, to be courageous, we must be encouraged by Godās promises. It is Godās promises that encourage and excite us into the light He has given to us. God told Joshua in verse 5, you remember thatās connecting it, not to worry about those who would seek to stand before him. He says that, āIāll be with you, Joshua. Just like I was with Moses, Iāll be with you. Iāll not fail you, I will not forsake you.ā Now, thatās a promise and a principle.
God will see to it that Joshua and Israel possess what is theirs if they simply walk depending upon Him. God is the source of all of our strength. He was a source of strength for Moses. Heās going to be the source of strength for Joshua. Heās the divine source. And what He promises, He delivers. And itās just this thing that excites us. When we hear what God says, when we understand His promises, we want to step out on them. It excites us to experience the life He promises is ours. So He tells Joshua, āBe strong and courageous.ā By the way, thatās not a suggestion. Thatās in the imperative, thatās a command. āBe strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them.ā
Now, there is an assuredness. He assures Joshua, āItās going to happen, Joshua. Itās going to happen. For you shall give this people possession of the land. Joshua, stand on what Iām telling you. Gain strength from my promise to you, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them.ā
You know, the beautiful thing here is, he says, āJoshua, youāre simply one in a long line of those Iāve involved in bringing you and the nation of Israel to this place. Now stand on what Iāve said! Stand on My promise. Take it to the bank and move on.ā See, God through His promises causes us to grow strong. If you donāt know the promises of God, then what are you standing on? What is it that excites you to say yes to God? What is it within you? The promises of God do that. They encourage our heart to face whatever comes in possessing what He says is ours.
Now, I want you to think about this. This is the land. He gives them a promise. His word is solid, you can stand upon it. But God didnāt give us a land, He gave us a life. What are the promises God has given to us that we can take to the bank, things that He has said that excite our hearts and encourage our hearts? In Ephesians 1:3, I love this verse, āBlessedāthat word means āto be praisedāābe the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.ā Why? Whatās the promise here? What is it He says that is so solid for you and me? āWho has blessed us.ā I love the tense there. Who is not going to bless us, who is not blessing us, but who has already blessed us. Well, what did He bless us with? āWith every,ā you say, āWayne, Iāve got a King James and it says āall,ā thatās okay. āEveryā and āallā kind of mean the same thing. You can use either one you want to. Relax! God has given you every what kind of blessing in the heavenly places in Christ? Every spiritual blessing has been given to us in the heavenly places in Christ.
Now, who does Paul write this to? He writes it to a discouraged group of people in Ephesus. If youāve not been to Ephesus, Iāve been there, going to take a group when we go to Greece, I canāt tell you how when you go there you begin to understand Ephesians. The rich intelligentsia, it was one of the wonders of the world. People would come from everywhere to see Ephesus. And yet, hereās this little church there thatās been beat up. It was the height of paganism, the temple of Diana at the top of the hill, and as youād walk up that hill, the huge libraries where they had the great wisdom and intelligence, as you walked up the hill little shops where they would buy the statues of Diana to take away and worship. These people were so lost but didnāt know it. And so you see, that little church was in the middle of it and they were just humiliating them and embarrassing them. And Paul says, āHey! Youāre rich, friend, spiritually rich. You have been given everything.ā
Now, you can sit down and try to list all the blessings youād like to ask God for, but Heās given you spiritually every one of them already. You donāt have to ask for patience, you already have it. You donāt have to ask for peace, you already have it. You donāt have to ask for joy, you already it. God promises it to you in Christ. That is something He has said that should incite your heart of what He has promised.
Verse 16 tells us how to appropriate it. It sounds almost like Heās speaking to Joshua in the Old Testament. Ephesians 3, āHe said that He would grant you, I pray this [he was praying] āaccording to the riches of His glory [which he says in verse 8 are unsearchable, thereās so many of them], to be strengthened with power through His spirit [but where?] in the inner man.ā Just exactly what God told Joshua: āI will be your strength from within, and youāll be able to stand against whatever comes to oppose you, to possess what is already yours.ā You see, we need to learn to stand on the promises that are ours, to allow the Spirit to be our strength from within.
And, by the way, we donāt have physical enemies. They had the Amorites, and the Amalakites, and the termites, and everybody that was in the land of Canaan. We donāt have physical enemies. He tells them in Ephesians who the real enemy is. Itās not those intelligentsia, itās not the rich and the powerful. He says in 6:4, āfor our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and the powers and the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.ā
And then, in the book of Galatians which we just studied, he tells us something else about an enemy. He says in verse 17, āfor the flesh, it sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another so that you may not do the things that you please.ā And then in Romans 12:2, he says, āDonāt be conformed to this world.ā And what you see is a triune enemy that we face. We face the world, the flesh and the devil. And they work in tandem to defeat us in our walk with Christ. And thatās our opposition, and it comes to us in many forms, it comes to us in many ways, but we have to wrestle with that, with the fact that itās a spiritual warfare that weāre in. And here we are, trying to possess what we already have, to enter into the life that we already have, but thereās so much opposition. The flesh pulls us this way, the world has already set its traps, and the devil attacks those who seek to walk in obedience to the Lord. So we must learn Godās promises in the midst of this.
Understand that weāre in boot camp down here on earth. We must learn to be encouraged by what God has said and this excites us into the life which He has already given to us. When we begin to hear with our ears how He loves us, when we begin to hear what He has promised to us, when we begin to hear the riches that we have that are unsearchable, it excites us to want to possess what He says is ours.
Now, I want you to remember something. Youāve got to tie this to the crisis. Donāt forget, this is not isolated Scripture. Heās going to put you into a crisis where this is going to become real in your life. I donāt know how many times we were going into Communist Romania, and many times for a month or so at a time, and we would go in at different places and different ways, we would meet somewhere in the country and there was no Plan B. And I remember the verse that was so beautiful to me in the fact that He said in Hebrews that He will not leave us nor forsake us. I never felt alone, even though I stayed by myself. We were not allowed to know where the other person was staying so that if the secret police stopped us we couldnāt tell them anything. And if you missed a rendezvous, youāre just in a country that doesnāt speak English, and is very hostile towards Christians, and it was an interesting life. You didnāt have Plan B. All you had was faith. If God didnāt come through, youāre sunk! I remember how many times āIāll never leave you nor forsake you,ā that promise kept coming back to me. It encouraged me to step out and enter what God had already given me.
I remember one night we went to a pastorās church and preached. You could always tell the Communists who were there. Almost every church I could have spotted them. And this church in particular. The guy sat there, and I mean, bone-chilling, sobering, mean stare at you. He had sunglasses on in a dark night, and a dimly lit church. It was kind of easy to figure out who was who. And I never will forget the boldness to preach the gospel right in his face. And it wasnāt to slam him, it was just something that God gave me when I was over there that I will never, ever forget, and will always be grateful for understanding that.
As we finished the service that night we went over to the pastorās little house and we were going to eat dinner. Somebody had driven over a hundred miles to get potatoes so we could have French fries. They had heard that Americans liked French fries. I always accused them of knowing I was coming because I just love French fries. And they had chicken livers. Iāve never liked chicken livers. But they tasted like T-bone steak that night when I realized how poor these people were and what they had done to give us that meal. And they will not eatāyou can beat them over the headāthey will not eat until you eat and they only eat what is left over.
We ate our meal and then they were going to take us and lead us out of town, because under Communism youāre stopped every mile, every three quarters of a mile, and checked. And this pastor knew his way around those road blocks. We went out and got in the car, five of us and the pastor was in front of us in his little car. And Iāll never forget what happened. As soon as we started off, there was a car right on our bumper, probably a foot away from the bumper. No lights were on, with four men inside. It was very obviously secret police. And we were riding down the road, and Dorie Van Stone was with us, and she began to get really nervous. And she began to pray, and she began to quote these Scriptures. And it just hit me when I was studying this passage, she began to go by āGod, you promised youād never leave us or forsake us.ā And she just kept going, because we just didnāt know what was next.
And all of a sudden the pastor had a horrified look on his face and he said, āOh, no! Iāve got a box of Christian tracts in the trunk of the car. One tract sent a man to prison for almost ten years.ā He has a whole box of them in the trunk. He was supposed to have left them and forgot them! And here we are with the secret police right behind us, the pastor in front of us, and we prayed, āOh, God! God! Give us wisdom. Oh, God, You said all the wisdom is in Christ Jesus. Heās a treasure house for the wisdom and knowledge of God. Give us understanding of what to do.
We came to the intersection and the pastor turned left. And just like that it hit this pastor to turn right. And we so confused the secret police, they didnāt know which one to follow. So they followed the pastor, which gave us the opportunity to make a huge loop and go back around and take that box of tracts and throw it over into a field so that later on the pastor could get it without getting caught. And when we went by where the way was that we were supposed to go out, the pastor was up against the wall and they were frisking him and had their guns out, had his car doors open and the trunk open, and we just eased right on by and went right on out of town. Iāll never forget those times.
When life is going well and youāve got money in the bank and food on the table and children are healthy and everythingās fine, I want to promise you that these promises wonāt mean a thing to you like they will when youāre at the point of desperation and you have nothing else to do but to turn to God and you cry out to Him. And in the midst of the crisis you stand on the promise that God has given to you, and God manifests Himself in a way that shakes you to your boots. Thatās what itās all about! Weāve got to be encouraged by the promises of God. When youāre in a crisis situation, understand what God has said. You donāt need to know what Wayne has said if itās not what God has said. Forget what Wayne has said. What has God said? Iām not the authority. Godās Word is the authority, which leads me to my second point.
Examine Godās word
Not only should we be encouraged by Godās promises, but we need, if weāre going to know Godās promises to be encouraged by them, we must examine Godās Word. This comes up in verses 7-8 as clear as can be. If weāre going to stand on what God has said, then we need to know what He has said. Itās amazing to me how many people struggle with this. I did for years. I got so involved in ministry that I forgot about what the whole purpose was about. If itās not in here, itās not worth doing.
God tells Joshua in verse 7, āOnly be strong and very courageous.ā I like that word āvery.ā He sort of emphasizes it a little bit there. āBe careful to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth; but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it, for then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have success.ā
Itās in the Word of God that one discovers not only the promises of God, but he also finds the will of God; not only the promises by which to be encouraged, but the will of God by which to be directed. And the two have to fit together. To do Godās will one must know what His will is. The phrase, āso you will have success wherever you goā is an awesome phrase. The word āsuccessā is the word meaning āyouāll learn to act wisely in whatever you do.ā Success is not having a great business and money in the bank. It means youāll learn to act as you should, prudently, with discretion and discernment in the midst of the battle. It carries the idea of making wise choices, of discerning situations and how to respond properly when the temptations come. Because, remember, the flesh is going to tempt us to step outside of what God has given to us. And weāre going to be able to discern when those temptations come. Weāre going to be able to discern the traps that the world has set around us. Weāre going to be able to discern the warfare that weāre in.
Growing strong and courageous from within will be to the degreeāand I want to say this in a way that you donāt hear ālawā in it, but I want you to understand responsibility in it. Sometimes we confuse the two, but there is a responsibility hereāitās going to be with the degree we are willing to spend time in Godās Word. I donāt mean youāre more spiritual if you spend an hour and a half; thatās not what Iām talking about. Itās an attitude toward the Word. But to the degree weāre willing to spend time in Godās Word, willing to surrender and obey whatever He says, will be the degree to which we grow strong and courageous from within. There will be no strength and no courage if you donāt know what God says and the context in which itās said. Life can hit us in the face so suddenly that weāre caught completely off guard if weāre not spending time with God in His Word.
Verse 3 lays out for us what is involved in doing just that. I love this! Itās just so clear! āThis book of the law shall not depart from your mouths.ā Thatās an interesting phrase. It has the idea of one who speaks with authority. I just love this! Joshua was their leader, we know that. And if he did not allow Godās Word to be his wisdom, then what he said to the people would have no authority. So donāt let what you get from here depart from what you say here. Itās amazing to me how many years I thought I was so intelligent and didnāt have any authority on anything I said, because I wasnāt in the Word of God. I did ministry; as a matter of fact, I was in the ministry eight years before I got saved. Itās really good to have saved ministers. Itās amazing what a difference that will make in a church!
So often when I bring this up, you donāt know me that well, Iāve only been here two years. I thought Iāve shared a lot of my life, but you still donāt know a whole lot about me. Iāve been on that other side. Iāve played that game. I know how to play it. I know how to get numbers. I know how to do those things, thatās not what weāre about. No! No! Thereās no authority unless it comes from the Word of God. Let this Book never depart from your mouth.
Itās just incredible to me how many folks, even today, and Iāve been there so I canāt really throw a rock, how many people speak intelligently in church and have no authority in what they say, because itās not filled with what God has said. āThis book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have success.ā
Now, that word āmeditateā is the word that draws for us the most powerful picture and practical picture of how to entertain this Scripture in our lives that I know of. It can be translated to āponder.ā And this is a cute translation. I mean, it really means this: it means to groan when youāre enjoying something. You know how you just mull over it. Itās like eating that rib eye, 22 ounces, cooked just right with a baked sweet potato and all that good stuff they put in there; and a salad with Thousand Island dressing on it. And you take that thing and cut it and eat it. Have you ever heard somebody thatās really enjoying it, just mmmmm! Theyāre not talking to anybody. Theyāre just enjoying it. It means to āponderā something to the greatest extent of enjoying it. Mmm!
Youāve never heard that before, just go out to eat with me sometime and Iāll show you what thatās like. Itās one of my greatest recreation is going out to restaurants. Somebody, years ago, and I tried to find it for this message and I apologize because I couldnāt, but it stuck in my brain and it will not leave me. It was a scholar who was commenting on this word, āmeditate,ā and he made a statement which he should not have made because it just captured my mind. He said itās like a cow chewing a cud. Now, have you ever thought about that?
But those cows will chew that cud! I used to love the cows. When I was in Chattanooga, the guy behind me had 40 some acres that were just cattle. It wasnāt mine, but they came up to my fence all the time and I got the advantage of seeing them and not having to take care of them. And I loved to walk out there sometimes and I listened to them for so long. Youāve got to be one of them or they wonāt respond to you. And they always had their backsides turned to me, and I donāt know why that was, and theyād be eating the grass and Iād walk out there and they know a brother when they hear one. And Iād walk out there and Iād say, āMooooo!ā If you do it right, theyāll turn and look around. And theyāll walk over and just get to the fence. Iād tell those cows anything I wanted to tell them. Theyāre the only creatures that listened to me in the whole city.
But those cows, I donāt know how many stomachs they haveāitās three or four, itās a bunch, more than oneātheyāll chew that cud and chew that cud, and you can hear them while theyāre chewing. Theyāre enjoying that thing. You think Iām being silly, but thatās the word! Pondering what theyāre chewing. And then what do they do? They swallow it. And then what do they do later on? It burps back up and they chew it some more. Chew it some more! Chew on it and chew on it!
You say, āWayne, youāre being facetious!ā No, Iām not! If youāll get into Godās Word and start meditating on it, chewing on what He says, āDoes He say that? Does He say I have all things? Does He say that He loves me? Unconditionally? Does He say that Iām not under some legalistic standard? Does He say all of that?ā Ponder it! Ponder it! Swallow it. Go to work, and watch what happens. Heāll burp it up on you before the day is over. I promise you! I promise you! You get into the Word of God and you wonāt finish the day before God will bring that Word right back up to you.
And youāre sitting there in your office or doing whatever youāre doing and you start chewing on them again. āThatās really good.ā John Phillips who has written all the books, a set of commentaries exploring everything, I spoke with him at a conference and we were out to eat and I said, āJohn, whatās your secret to studying the Scriptures?ā I always want to learn from people who can help me. He said, āWayne, I spend at least five hours a day just meditating on Godās Word, without a pencil in my hand. Just letting God repeat that Word to me over and over and over again.ā That blessed me. Thatās exactly what that word is talking about. Youāre applying this. Iām so committed to this Book, and I understand that people sometimes donāt understand me, and Iām so sorry for that. But I want you to know that why I do what I do is because I love this Book! In this Book we find the promises of God!
This Book! Studying Godās Word so radically changed my life 20 some years ago, I could never go to anything else. Been there! Get in to this Book. If you want to know what the promises of God are that will encourage and excite your heart, to possess what God says is already yours, youāve got to get into the Book for yourself. To hear it from Wayne is one thing; to hear it from God, purely from the Word, is quite a different experience. And He lets you meditate on it and chew on it and chew on it and chew on it, and it begins to take root in your life.
There are three steps to studying Godās Word, in case you donāt know how to do this. I just want to hit them briefly. If thereās ever anything we can do to help you, thatās where weāre headed as a church, to be an equipping church. To help people, to equip people to get into the Word for themselves.
The first step is observation. What does the text say? Thatās the first step, always. You never interpret before you observe. This is the problem many have of jumping into a Scripture without its context. Any text without a context is a pretext. So you observe: What is He doing here? What does the Scripture say?
Secondly, is interpretation. Why do I use the languages? Not because Iām trying to impress anybody. Because interpretation goes into those languages, youāve got to dig a little deeper to find the truest meaning. You say, āWayne, I donāt know those languages.ā Listen, donāt hear me wrong. If you never had known those languages, the Holy Spirit will bring that truth to your heart. But hereās the difference: when you get into interpretation and you begin to learn how to do it for yourself, what happens is a 19 inch black and white boring television set with basic channels, becomes a 60 high definition TV with satellite! Does it change the meaning? Absolutely not! But what it does, it brings it up on the table where nobody can doubt what it is. And it puts the icing; it puts all the good stuff around it. You begin to understand it for the first time.
Then, application. And application is not, āNow that Iāve studied and interpreted, what does this text mean to me?ā No, no, no! Please understand! You can make the Scriptures a cookbook if you want to with that approach if you want to. No, application is now that I know the truth which is without any private interpretation, then I need to learn how to adjust my life so that I can walk and live in what I have just discovered. What changes about me do I need to make in order for the Scripture to be real in my life if I truly meditated and studied Godās Word?
He says, āMeditate on it day and night.ā Itās so important. Itās not for information that we can use to argue with our brother. No! Itās for transformation of our life, to cause us to enter and stand on that which God has said to yield to Him. And it becomes His life in us and we experience to the degree weāre willing to study, to meditate, and to say yes to Him. Thatās not a legalistic law. Thatās just a commonsense principle God gives us in His Word, a responsible principle. You see, some people take this message of grace with passivity. No, no, no! Discipline and determination are the two nails that keep us on the cross. We discipline ourselves to study, we determine that we want to be able to experience what God has. Now we canāt go much beyond that, because God has to take that and then He brings us in, but weāve got to be in the Word of God.
āBe careful to do according to all thatās written in it,ā he says. Verse 7 says, āDonāt turn from it to the right or to the left.ā Allow it to totally affect you to where even what you sayāthat depart from your mouthāis seasoned with it. Boy, thatās just to me the perfect picture of those who enter what God says is already theirs. Who are those who are possessing what God has says is given to them in Christ? They are those who are yielded to Godās will, who are meditating in His Word, not turning from it to the right or to the left. People that want to experience what they already have heard that by grace is already theirs in Christ. Paul says of the Word of God in 2 Timothy 3:16, āAll Scripture is inspiredāāand this is prophetic because they didnāt have all the canon put together at that timeāāby God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.ā
Thereās a play on words there. The word āadequateā is the same word as āequipped,ā but theyāre just different forms of that word, and what it means is so that the ship in the harbor is so fully stocked and supplied that itās ready to make the journey. You see, thatās what itās all about: the Scriptures. āThis book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.ā Without it, His promises are vague, His power is untouched, and life overwhelms us. It completely defeats us. He says, āFor then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.ā
The word āprosperousā is the word meaning many things in Hebrew. It can be translated many ways, but its main meaning is āvictorious.ā Thatās what it means by success. Not success as the world sees success, but victorious. To be able to walk through a trial and face it with integrity because you know the promises of God and the Word of God and you know the life that is within you and as you yield to Him, He gives you the discernment and the wisdom and the strength to bear up under whatever it is you face.
The word translated āsuccessā is our word we saw earlier. It means to act wisely and prudently. We must be encouraged by Godās promises. Itās part of the journey. In the midst of the crisis, we fall back on the things God has said. But to do that, we must be examining Godās Word daily. Meditating on it day and night so that when those times come, weāre ready, and when theyāre not there, we just enjoy to the fullest what God has for us.
Godās presence
But finally we must learn to expect Godās presence. āHave I not commanded you?ā verse 9, āBe strong and courageous. Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord, your God, is with you wherever you go.ā āDo not tremble or be dismayed. I am with you.ā
The word ātrembleā is the word that means to stand back, to the point that youāre so overwhelmed that you are paralyzed in your tracks by fear. The word ādismayedā means to be so frightened you fall to pieces. Donāt be dismayed; donāt tremble, because Iām with you. Knowing the promises of God and meditating on the Word will keep us from this type of response. When weāre standing on the promises, when weāre allowing Godās Word to permeate our lives, when we begin to learn to expect God to show up, we learn to expect His presence.
An old gentleman who is dead now helped me with my walk with the Lord many years ago. He said, āWayne, practice the presence of Christ. Because if youāre saying yes to Him, He will immediately manifest Himself in some way. Maybe itās in strength for the journey, maybe itās in joy or peace, but whatever it is, Heāll manifest that life within you. Even though you know you have it, Heāll let you know Heās there.ā He never leaves you. Expect the presence of God.
āWhat do I do, Wayne?ā Here it is! This is what you do: be encouraged by the promises of God; but to know them, examine the Word of God. But learn to expect His presence. Donāt beg for it, expect it! He shows up when Heās honored by saying yes to Him.
I was standing at the door of a church I pastored years ago, and I was having a tough time. I didnāt know these truths well, and I was just trying to learn them. A man who had cancer and was about to die walked out and he looked at me and I said, āHey, Brother Mason, how are you doing?ā He said, āWayne, Iām doing fine. In the Lord, Iām doing fine. How are you doing, Wayne?ā And I made the mistake of saying, āWell, Iām hanging in there. Have you ever seen that picture of that cat hanging there on the limbāIām just hanging in there.ā
And you know what he said to meāhereās a man dying of terminal cancer and knew he only had about two months to liveāhe squeezed my hand again and he said, āSon, donāt you ever let me hear you say that again. Life is not hanging in there. Life is standing fast on the promises of God!ā Boy, that rocked me! What I thought I was going through compared to what he was going through was nothing! And he helped me. Thatās how we live this life: possessing what we already have.