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Taking Ground Away From The Enemy
Pastor Floyd's final message from his series Believing God For The Impossible
$6.00 — $12.00
This morning we are going to bring closure to our 3-week series called “Believing God for the Impossible.” Sunday 1 we talked about the importance of seeing where God wants you to go. If we are going to believe God for the impossible in life, we need to be able to see where God wants us to go. For those of you that were here, you might remember that where God wanted His people to go was the Promised Land, yet, they were in Egypt. In between lies the great storyline of where we have been talking.
Last week we talked about casting unbelief out of your life. I’m telling you if you missed last week, you need to get a copy of last week. You need to go online and you need to listen to last week because we have to understand the people wandered in the wilderness 40 years. God let a generation die off because they were filled with unbelief. That unbelief was personified in all kinds of different ways: fear, doubt, worry, and so many other things that we talked about. But the real bottom line problem was unbelief. And you know what? If we are ever going to see God do the impossible in our lives, trusting the Lord for great things, listen friend, it will only happen as we learn to cast unbelief out of our lives.
Today we’re going to talk about the third part of that believing God for the impossible, and if you don’t learn what we’re talking about today, you’re never going to be able to seize the future that God has for you in your life. We’re going to be talking about taking ground away from the enemy.
The text that we’re going to talk about today is over in the 1st chapter of the book of Joshua. So if you have a copy of God’s Word, I want you to look with me to Joshua chapter number 1. In Joshua chapter 1 we’re going to talk about what this means, and how this took place. Now may I tell you this? 40 years in the wilderness, God let a generation die off. They were the ones who saw the Red Sea parted. They were the ones who saw water come from the rocks. They were the ones that had manna rain down from heaven 40 years in a row, but God said I’m not going to give you the Promised Land because of your incredible unbelief. And God let them die. Moses died. God let him look over and see the Promised Land, but He never let him go. And now we have a record of what happens from this moment.
The Bible says these words in Joshua 1. “After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel.” Look at verse 3. “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory.” Verse 5. “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.” Listen to these instructions He gives Joshua. “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good 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 good success.” Verse 9. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go. And Joshua commanded the officers of the people, pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, prepare your provisions for the three days you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.”
Did you see what He said in verse 11? You’re going to pass over this Jordan and you’re going to what? Take possession of the land. What land? The Promised Land that God is giving you to possess. Isn’t it interesting here there was not a bridge for them to walk over? There was no way a construction crew was onsite ready to build a bridge in three days. But God said what your fathers saw years ago; I’m going to do for you. And in three days it’s going to happen.
Have you ever thought about why war occurs? War? War happens anytime you try to take back something that was taken away from you, or you go and try to take something away that belongs to someone else, or you go and try to free a people from injustice.
Who would have ever imagined even a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, a decade ago that we would be where we are in the world today? Afghanistan. I heard on the news this morning they are fighting right now the most fierce battle that’s ever been fought in Afghanistan. They are even saying the most fierce battle they’ve ever seen even relating to Iraq. We need to pray for our service men and women.
Iraq. What we’re seeing in Libya, Syria, and more to come. Who would have ever thought? But as fierce as any one nation would ever have an opponent, there is no opponent more fierce than the one that you face as a born-again Christ follower. For that opponent, his name is Satan; he steals, kills, and destroys. He takes ground away from you that you have quite honestly given to him by the poor choices we make in life.
Do you realize that every time you make a poor choice Satan gains ground in your life? And what happens then is that he keeps gaining ground. His position changes, and it’s just like a football team when they have better field position, there is likelihood to gain even better field position. And that’s what Satan does to you in your life. You gain, he gains field position on you and he continues to gain that position, and the ultimate result of that is that you find yourself in a mighty battle that has to take place that if you’re going to operate and be the Christian that God wants you to be, you’ve got to learn to take ground away from the enemy!
And he plays really dirty, and he plays for keeps. And in your life what happens is bondage, and even bondages, if you may, get set up in your life, and take place in your life that normally would have never taken place had you not given ground over to him through the poor choices of life.
In our story today Moses sent, raised up to deliver the people out of Egypt. He does that; God does that, through Moses. The plagues come. They’re released. They go through the wilderness experience. They saw the Red Sea part, roll back. They saw amazing miracles of God again and again and again, and now unbelief is so distorted their pathway. How do you not believe after you saw all they saw? The same way we don’t believe after we’ve seen and seen and seen. Same thing.
And the whole issue becomes this incredible journey that they were about to move in to as they crossed over into the Jordan River and through the Jordan, able to enter into the Land of Promise. He gives to them actions, actions that they needed to take, and actions that quite honestly are relevant to us today, and they’re actions that we need to take when we want to take ground away from the enemy! I’m only going to note five of these actions. And I want you to write them down if you’re taking notes. I want you to get them in your heart, put them in your heart, and understand the power of the. I want to make it real clear today we are a Bible church. We are Bible teaching, Bible preaching church. If we don’t talk from the Bible, we don’t have a lot to say. In fact, we really shouldn’t have anything to say. The only thing that gives us any credibility, the only thing that gives us any truth to share, is what we say from the Bible. So today, you’ve got to look at the Bible with us, and you have to understand these actions come out of the Bible.
And here is God telling Joshua, “Joshua, now you know Moses is dead. You’ve assisted him, now God has raised you up. Now you go and finish the task of what I wouldn’t let Moses do.” And He gave him these actions: action number 1.
1. Go take what God says is yours already. Joshua, God already said the Promised Land was yours, now you go take what God says is yours. What did He say? What’s that last word up there? Already. Say it out loud. Already. In other words it is already an event that God says He has done for you, and now you go and you take it! God’s already given it to you, now go take what God says is yours already!
We find that in verse 3. Remember what He said? Look at it. “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon.” What did God say? “I have given it to you. I have handed it to you. I’m going to send you on a journey, Joshua, and every place your foot touches buddy I’ve given it to you. It’s yours! Yes the ite family lives there!” All the ittes, the Hittites, the Jebusites, and all the other ites, but buddy it doesn’t belong to them, it belongs to you! I gave it to the, to the, to the Abraham, your father of father, of father of the faith in Genesis 12 verses 1, 2, and 3. I told him I was going to send his followers, his people to a land that was going to be flowing with milk and honey, and buddy here it is! Go get it! It’s yours.
Interesting, isn’t it? Their faith was forward; it wasn’t backward. Their faith was futuristic not historical. Their faith moved them into an activism for God, rather than a passivism that many times we deal with in life. Here they are, Joshua is telling them you are going to do what God says you’re going to do and I’m going to give it to you. Now you go do it. He is pointing them to the future, not to the past. Here they are talking about what God will do rather than what God has already done.
So what does the Bible teach us? The Bible teaches us for example in verse 2, go where you’ve never been before. Go where you’ve never been before. You have to understand today if you’re going to take what is already yours, you are going to be going where you’ve never been before. Faith takes you to places where you’ve never been before otherwise it wouldn’t be faith. Are you with me?
You have to understand that if you want to follow God in your life, and you want to move to territory that God wants you to have, you’ve got to be just like these people right here. They’re going to places they’ve never been. They’ve heard about it. They’ve read about it. They’ve seen. They’ve seen. They’ve remembered those times where maybe mom and dad talked to them about what God was going to ultimately do, even though they lived in their own unbelief. And here’s the thing. They were willing to go where they’ve never been before.
Listen friend, you will never go where God wants you to go until you’re willing to go where you’ve never been before. Faith takes you where you are not comfortable. Faith takes you on a trip, and you don’t even know where you’re going when you leave the station. Are you with me? God always doesn’t let you in on where He is taking you.
Interestingly, notice this, they also go together. And I want to tell you today when you go together you know what happened? They had faith because they went together. I want to say to you today that’s one reason the church exists so that we can go together. God doesn’t lead us somewhere by ourselves, but that’s why He’s given the family of God. And we can go together! You have greater faith when you’re around people who have great faith. You’re able to build up and to get yourself ready to go if you know that you’re not going alone, but you’re going with someone else.
Also, you can go with confidence. There’s something about it that when you know God has said I’m going to give you this, it’s yours already, now go get it, go do it, you’re able to go with confidence. When you go forward together, and when you’re expecting God to do something, you can, and you will go with confidence.
I want to tell you today there is ground and there is territory that you used to have in your life but you have conceded that ground and that territory over to your enemy, Satan. It could be an attitude. It could be a habit. It could be an addiction. It could be any kind of thing, but the bottom line is every time we concede ground through the poor choices we make, and listen, when we make poor choices, we’re handing ground over to the enemy. We’re handing it over to Satan, and what God is saying to us today, go and take it back! Go and take it back because I’m telling you I saved all of you, not 25% of you. I want all of your heart, not 50% of you. I don’t even want 99%; I want all of you to be under My leadership, and under My lordship.
Action number 2:
2. Go knowing no enemy can stand against you. No enemy can stand against you. Verse number 5, what did He say? “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life.” That’s pretty clear, isn’t it? We might ask now how do, how do you think they knew that no enemy would stand against them? I’ll tell you why, because God said so.
You know, we just need to take the Word for what it says. God said so. We don’t need to debate what God says in His Word. It’s amazing how we want to debate that today, or we want to negotiate that today. We, we kind of think that we need to bring our win/win business mentality into our walk with God. Let’s see if we create a win/win God with You and me. No, it’s not always win/win when you obey God. You understand that? I mean, sometime we have to understand we have to make hard choices. And sometime guess what? That means God’s will lives, and your will dies. That’s not win/win; that’s win/lose. God wins, you lose. And by the way, ultimately just for a little matter of fact, God’s going to win anyway so you might as well go on and act like you’re on the winning team.
So what we have to understand here is that we have to understand that God says so. But let me tell you another reason it happens is because God is with you. God is with you. Notice this, you can go knowing that no enemy can stand against you because God is with you. That’s exactly what He said. I’m not going to leave you, nor am I going to forsake you. You see whom I believe is the writer of Hebrews, the Apostle Paul, you see Paul mentioning that over in chapter 13 of Hebrews, verse 5. He quotes that text right there. He says I’m going to never leave you or forsake you. That’s what God gave him. He said the Lord is my helper and I’m not going to be forsaken. God is going to be with me.
Isn’t it amazing when you look at the story, and any of you that know the book of Joshua, you know that sooner or later they pass through the waters. God does an amazing thing. He rolls back the Jordan River, and they walk on dry land, and the first obstacle they face is what? Jericho. Joshua chapter 6 occurs, and they face a city that walls are used, and God told them I want you to take that city down. I want you to go and claim the land, and they’re your first ones. And do you know what the Bible says about Joshua 6? About Jericho? It says the city was tightly shut, meaning the city was like a fortress. No one could bring it down, but God gave them a plan. I’m going to go into the plan today, but if we look at that plan in the Scripture, we’d think that’d be pretty foolish. We could never see ourselves doing what they did. But guess what happens? They obeyed God.
What did they do? They took God at His word! They did what God said do! And guess what God did? God brought the walls of the city of Jericho down! And enemy number one defeated! And they gained ground back that God says was theirs already. I want to tell you today that our enemies of sin and death and hell and the grave have been overcome through the greatest battle that ever took place, and that was at the cross of Jesus Christ. And when the cross took place, and when the resurrection occurred, listen to me today, all of sin, all of death, all of the grave, and all of hell was overcome and even those enemies we will defeat if we know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The battle’s already been won! [APPLAUSE] So I’m telling you today we can go forward knowing that no enemy can stand against us.
And then he says:
3. Go and be courageous. That’s the third action that He tells us to follow. Go and be courageous. Verse number 6 talks about it. In fact strong and courageous are the words used there. Interesting, notice this, that phrase strong and courageous is mentioned in verse 6, verse 7, and verse 9. You know why He told them that? Because they were about to go under a huge undertaking. They were about to be called upon to put their foot into the Jordan and see God do a miracle, and they were about to go and face the enemies in the Promised Land, the ite family, and they were going to take them out. And that was the will of God for their life.
And so what did God tell them? God said I’m going to give you additional strength to face this undertaking. I’m going to give you additional courage to face this undertaking that you’re, that you’re with. I’m going to be with you. I’m not going to let you alone. I’m not going to forsake you. I’m going to be with you, and listen to Me; I’m going to give you success wherever you go because I’ve already taken care of your enemies in advance.
Let me ask you this morning, what are you facing in your life? What are you facing? What is the Jericho in your life that you’re facing? It’s tightly shut. Could it be a marital situation? Could it be divorce? Could it be some kind of relationship as a teenager or a college student that may be you need to be set free from? Could it be in your own life a financial challenge? Could it be a, a job issue? An employee? Or an employer issue? I want to tell you today my friend, and you need to know this with confidence this morning, the same God who was able to let them walk through the Red Sea on dry ground, and the same God who was able to give them manna for 40 years is the same God who will see you through. Therefore, whatever you are facing, you can be strong and you can be courageous. Not on your own fortitude, your own fortitude is going to wimp out sooner or later! But with God’s help nothing is impossible. With God’s power, everything is possible! With the touch of God upon your life, everything changes! So today you can be strong and courageous if you know Jesus because the Lord is with you. He will not forsake you. And you go and you be with Him.
Action number 4:
4. Go and do what God says to do. Go and do what God says to do. Notice verse 7 and verse 8 they’re talking about the law. He said I’ve given to the people the Law of God. The Law of Moses he called it. Now what we have is more than just the law of Moses. We have the law, and we have grace. We have Genesis to Revelation. And what we have to understand we have all of the Bible. And you know what He’s telling us today that if we’re going to go and do what God says do, then we need to do what He says! We need to do it like He says it.
We don’t need to negotiate it. We don’t need to go out here and compromise it. We need to go out here and do it like He says it! Folks I want to challenge you today, would you just take the Word for what the Word says? Would you let the Word be the Word? Would you stop trying to work some kind of deal out with God acting like you’re across the table of some boardroom meeting trying to make a negotiation? You’re not going to be able to do that with God! Listen, God’s going to do what He wants to do. His Word will be fulfilled whether you believe it or not, whether you’re going to be a part of the plan or not. He’s given you the privilege to be a part of the plan.
And when He talks about it, He talks about staying straight to the Word, and being focused on the Word. What did He say? Don’t turn to the right or the left. That’s pretty clear! Don’t let it leave your heart or your mind. Be focused on it. Pretty clear. It’s the power of Deuteronomy 6; the Word is all over you and all over your family. And you’re not going to depart from it, and you’re going to learn sooner or later if you do that, you’re going to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind. Talk it! And meditate upon it, meaning keep your thoughts on the Word of God constantly on your life!
And then what does He say? Do it all! Do it all! That’s what He says, do it all! And what will happen when we do all of the Word? Two things: Success and prosperity. Success and prosperity. DO it all! Now I want you to think with me about something here. May I remind you that all of their mommas and daddies didn’t get to go and be where they are right now? All their mommas and daddies died because they were filled with unbelief. That’s right the generation died off the Bible said. And then now, all of the children got to go across.
Now how did they do that? Why did they get chosen? I mean think about this with me for a moment how exciting it must have been for them to see something like they saw God do with mom and dad. Do you think they were willing to go forward and do what God said do? Maybe they remembered the stories around the campfire at night when they talked about how mom, when mom and dad talked to the family and all of the relatives and said guys you’ll never believe it man, we saw God do this. We saw God do this. And you know what? Moses got us out of Egypt. Here comes, here comes the Egyptian Army racing after us. Here’s the Red Sea. And Moses put his staff in the sea and God rolled the waters back, and we walked across on dry ground. We kept on thinking that they were going to catch up, but God let us all of us get through, and then, there they were, the soldiers were right where we were, and then He rolled the waters right back over them when all of His people were free and set free, and on their way to the Promised Land. Wow. That’s what gave them faith to put their foot in the Jordan River, and God did the same thing with the Jordan River.
Parents let me tell you something. You share the victories of faith with your children, and one day God will raise it in the hearts of your children, and they will remember what they were taught about how to go forward with faith. You know what God then told them?
Action number 5:
5. Go and believe God will do it. Go and believe God will do it. In verse 13, I know we didn’t read it a moment ago, but in verse number 13 he says, “The Lord your God is providing you, He’s providing you this land. He’s providing you this special moment. You of all people, even though mom and dad had died off, I’m giving you this moment, this opportunity. I want to tell you today, you may not like where you are, you may not like anything happening in your life right now, but I want to everybody to sit still for a moment. I want you to wake up. I want you to get focused, and I want to tell you the Lord your God is providing you right now in your life, whatever now is, and you may think it’s horrible and terrible, but you could be in MD Anderson Hospital today, and you’ve lost it all, and you’re on the brink of death! But you are here. And this is your moment. God has got you here for a moment. He is providing you this strategic moment and time in your life. It’s a moment that’s unlike any moment you’ve ever been given in your life. And we have to understand the Lord God is providing you something, and if you didn’t have purpose and meaning, He would take you out of here! SO you have a purpose and a meaning in your life, now you’ve got to go find it! You’ve got to discover it! And then go do it.
But the Lord your God is providing you, and then look also in verse number 15, and He says, “Take possession of the land, and you shall possess it.” Sometime we think oh if we just pray it about all’s going to work out. Well not quite. Sometime when you pray, you need to understand you’ve got to work. You’ve got to take action on your prayers. God leads you to pray about something, pray about something, pray about something, I mean could it be that God wants you to act upon what you’ve prayed about? Huh? That’s what He wanted them to do. They could have prayed oh Lord would you give us the Promised Land? Would you give us the Promised Land? Would you give us the Promised Land? Oh God would you give us the Promised Land? But God said hey boys, you pray, we’re going to go get it! We’re going to go possess it!
And you’ve got to fight for it! And I’m telling you today you’re going to have to fight for certain areas back in your life that you used to have under the lordship of Jesus Christ. I call these moments Crossover Moments. Crossover Moments let me define today. Crossover Moments occur when you go forward with faith, believing God and expecting God to move. I’m telling you that group of people that were on the brink of the Jordan River, they were at a crossover moment, and you know what? They could go forward with faith, and they could expect God to do something! You know why? Because they heard the great stories of the past of how God moved in their family’s life earlier. And even though mom and dad had gotten disobedient and rebellious to God, it didn’t eliminate them talking about how God was so good to them at certain points in their life. And God was able to use that moment of recall.
Every one of us, we’re in times of life where we have crossover moments. Moments when God wants you to go forward. Moments when you have to go in faith, and you’ve got to go forward expecting God to do something. I guarantee you there are hundred and hundreds of you here today you’re at a crossover moment. You are. You are at a crossover moment. It is a big time moment.
It reminds me of what Steven Furtick writes about in his book called Sun Stand Still. He calls them Sun Stand Still moments. Powerful little read. It’s all built on the Scripture about how one day when God was leading His people to fight against the enemy, Joshua asked the Lord to let the sun stand still, and not move and go down so their enemies could be defeated. I wonder if God answered the prayer? Oh it’s an amazing story if you’ll look over in Joshua chapter 10, I want to read just three verses from it.
Verse 12, “At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day the Lord gave the Amorites,” told you there’s more of those ites families, “And to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,” listen to what Joshua prayed, “Sun,” he wasn’t talking about son, s-o-n, he was talking about s-u-n. “Sun stand still and give in, and moon in the valley of Echelon, and the sun stood still, and the moon stopped until the nation, the nation of Israel took vengeance on their enemies.” Is it not written in the book of Jashar that the sun stopped in the midst of heaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day? There has been no day like it before, or since, since the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel. A sun stand still moment.
I’m telling you today many of you you’re facing obstacles in your life that I mean it’s like you cannot go on with God. Many of you are facing family issues, financial issues, job issues, relationship issues, some of you facing addiction issues, and you don’t know why you can’t ever break it! I’ll tell you why you’re not breaking it! You’ve got to approach this big old sun stand still God we’ve got, and you’ve got to trust Him just like Joshua trusted Him. And I want to tell you today you can do it! You’ve got go, and you’ve got to believe God to do it! Because the same God who made the Red Sea roll back, and rained manna from heaven is the same God who made the sun stand still, and who gave them the privilege to walk across the Jordan on dry ground, is the same God who is with you, who died for you, who was raised from the dead for you, who is coming for you, who is right now in your life with power if you know Jesus, and you can trust Him! And you can expect Him to move in your life!
You’ve got to know that, and you’ve got to believe that! Because if you don’t believe it, it just comes down to one slap out think ladies and gentlemen, unbelief. What are you going to trust? Who are you going to trust? What ground in your life do you need to take away from the enemy today? What choices have you made where you’ve given it over to the enemy, and it seems like it’s the same old story every time you go, and you confess your sin, it’s the same old story! Same old sins! Same old story! Why? I’ll tell you why. You’ve given ground over, and you don’t really want to fight to take it back! But God’s equipped you, and God desires more than anything in the world that you walk in freedom rather than bondage. And it’s His will for you to believe Him for the impossible.
And I tell you today in the name of Jesus the same God who made the sun stand still for the people of God to win a battle is the same God who can alter situations and circumstances, and even your heart to go forward in faith, and to go forward in victory.
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