[0:00] Good morning. I don't know why I feel compelled to share this, but maybe because it's on my heart.
[0:13] When we would, if we were to perform a clinic of sorts, we would, of course, select experts to speak on the subject within the clinic.
[0:27] You know, I played college baseball, and we had guys that came out and helped us. We had a catcher for the Angels came out and worked with the catchers.
[0:41] My pitching coach happened to be a former Major League pitcher. My coach for a couple of years was the number one pick in the draft, the MLB draft or whatever, who actually held the home run record at USC before Mark McGuire came on the scene and broke that record.
[1:06] But when it comes to preaching, there's none of us who are experts, per se. You know, we're all just sinners saved by grace.
[1:19] And so when I stand up here today, I don't profess to be an expert on the subject that I would speak on this morning. You know, I'm preaching to myself as much as I'm preaching to anybody else here, knowing that I need to hear these things that I'm sharing just as much as anybody else here.
[1:37] And so I trust that you won't look at me and think that I picked this subject because I've mastered it in my life. Because by no means have I mastered it. So I'm doing a train to attain just as the Apostle Paul was.
[1:53] And if you would, Brother Mark, can you lead us, start us in prayer this morning? Thank you.
[2:27] If you would, you can take out your Bibles and turn to Joshua chapter 5. Joshua chapter 5, by way of introduction and basically to get our minds thinking a little bit this morning.
[2:45] Just to kind of set the scene. I don't think that I'm spoiling anything. I know in the second hour we've been talking about the book of Exodus for a number of weeks now.
[2:57] So I assume that we all are familiar with the outcome of Exodus and we know that Israel does make it out of Egypt. So I don't think I'm spoiling anything for anybody here by saying that they do make it out of Israel or they make it out of Egypt.
[3:15] But after that, they spend years wandering in the wilderness before they finally make it to the brink of Jordan and make it over Jordan into the promised land.
[3:28] And here we are in Joshua chapter 5. They finally made it to the promised land. Let me read here. Joshua 5, just verses 10 through 12.
[3:41] It says, And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho.
[3:55] And they did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the Passover, unleavened cakes and parched corn in the selfsame day.
[4:06] And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land. Neither had the children of Israel manna anymore, but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.
[4:22] After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, upheld by the omnipotent hand of the Lord God and supernaturally provided for by his divine sustenance, the children of Israel are now in the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and afterward to Moses and to Joshua and to themselves.
[4:50] After 40 years of the hot desert sand and biting serpents and bitter water and the dying off of 600,000 men of war, they are now encamped in the plains of Gilgal west of Jordan.
[5:09] After 40 years of manna and all of its many forms, if you remember the late, great Keith Green, he sang a song called manna hotcakes and manna souffle, manna waffles, manna burgers, filet of manna, and of course the manna bread.
[5:38] but the land now before them offered them a banquet of food which they had not had access to for many years.
[5:50] And for this one day, the children of Israel had the option of choosing manna one last time or the old corn of the land.
[6:04] they had the opportunity to choose angels' food, the bread of heaven, that which God had miraculously provided for them and sustained them with for the last 40 years of their lives.
[6:22] And for many who were under 40 years old, this was all they ever knew was manna or they could choose the old corn of the land.
[6:32] for this one day, they had the opportunity to choose between the heavenly and the earthly.
[6:46] And it makes you wonder how many of them chose manna that day and how many of them ran quickly to that old corn which they had not had for so many years.
[7:03] I guess we could ask ourselves the same question. What would we have done? What would we have done if we were there that day after being in the wilderness for so many years and being fed with really the miraculous provision of God?
[7:19] Would we have been so eager to move on to something earthly? earthly. make no mistake about it every single day of our lives we are either consumers of or partakers of the earthly the physical and the temporal or the heavenly the spiritual and the eternal.
[7:48] our time is either being occupied with physical temporary things or with spiritual eternal things. Matthew 6 24 says no man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.
[8:10] you cannot serve God and mammon and likewise we cannot partake of manna and old corn.
[8:25] Now for a number of weeks now Pastor Wolski has been preaching on perfecting that which is lacking and I'd like to add one more thing to the list if you will and for the next few minutes speak a little bit on the perfecting of our perspective.
[8:44] It would be earthly physical temporal mindedness versus heavenly spiritual eternal mindedness. 2 Corinthians 4.18 tells us that we are to look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal.
[9:09] Colossians 3.3 says set your affection on things above not on things of this earth not on the earth to set our affection to fix our affection to fix our gaze our thoughts our lives on those things which are above which are eternal.
[9:34] man is possessed of an eternal soul we're all eternal beings and because of that the things of this world can never fully satisfy because they can never ever meet a temporary need or they can only ever meet a temporary need of one of the flesh.
[10:00] Old corn can never fully satisfy it. Romans 8.5-8 says for they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit for to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the carnal mind is enmity against God and it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God so then if we are going to set our affections on the things above and enjoy that life and peace that comes with being spiritually minded is going to require a few things from us it's going to require a few things of us the first thing would be deferral to be spiritually minded to have a right perspective is going to require a deferral of our own selves and require a postponement of our greatest interests and desires in favor of the interests of the
[11:18] Lord God Solomon is a great example to the contrary in second chronicles two one we read and Solomon determined to build a house for the name of the Lord and a house for his kingdom kingdom and that's really an interesting comma there it says and Solomon determined to build a house for the name of the Lord comma and a house for his kingdom whose kingdom was it the Lord's kingdom or was it his kingdom that Solomon was more concerned with Joshua or second chronicles chapter eight verse one I'll just turn there you don't need to shed a little bit more light on it with another comma and it says and it came to pass at the end of twenty years wherein Solomon had built the house of the
[12:18] Lord and here's that comma again had built the house of the Lord and his own house his own house and first Kings six thirty eight seven or thirty eight through seven one sheds still a little more light on the situation speaking of the temple of God in Jerusalem which Solomon built in his father king David's dead who was forbidden to do so we read and in the eleventh year in the month bull which is the eighth month was the house finished throughout all parts thereof and according to all the fashion of it so was he seven years in building it but Solomon was building his own house thirteen years and he finished all his house if you do the math you can see that Solomon took seven years to build the house of the
[13:22] Lord but he took thirteen years to build his own house Solomon did he did in fact build the house of the Lord and it was magnificent but he spent nearly twice as long in the building of his own house and I fear that this probably looks like a lot of our own lives as well we do give our time to reading our Bibles and we do give our time to prayer we do give our time to a church service or two week in and week out but what is that in relation to or in comparison to our own daily selfish pursuits you know we find so much time for so many other things and I wonder where the balance is in our lives and really balance may not be the correct word because we can't say that we can give one part to
[14:26] God and one part to ourselves we should overwhelmingly be giving the greater part of our lives in the service of the Lord and deferring our own best interests remember what we saw earlier in Matthew 6 24 it says again no man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other else he will hold to the one and despise the other it appears that Solomon held to his own interests over the interests of the Lord God in the building of his temple you know if we think about it his son or his father the King David actually prepared for most of the building of the house all Solomon had to do is put the pieces together so we cannot serve our interests in the
[15:27] Lord and hope to be fully faithful to him we must defer our interests in favor of his Haggai chapter 1 verses 3 through 5 says then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet saying is it time for you O ye to dwell in your sealed houses and this house lie waste now therefore thus saith the Lord consider your ways is it time for you is this time our time you know I think sometimes we we live our lives as Sadducees the Sadducees of course believed that there was no resurrection and we often live our lives as though we don't truly believe that there's going to be a resurrection one day we think that this is all there is and because of that we are consumed with our own selves and our own self interests again now is not the time for the preferment of our own selves and our own self interests now is the time for the preferment of the
[16:46] Lord and those things which are of interest to him first and foremost listen we have a home awaiting us in the future a mansion built for us in heaven now is the time for the building of the Lord's house for the adding on to the foundation of which he is the chief cornerstone to the foundation laid upon by the apostles and prophets to the foundation of which the apostle Paul is declared to be a master builder upon this is the work that we're to dedicate ourselves to so then to reiterate it if we are to have a right perspective of things a godly perspective on things we must defer or postpone our own interests in favor of God's interests and secondly is going to require not only a deferment of our interests but a debasement of our own selves
[17:50] John 13 or John 3 30 says he must increase but I must decrease we must condescend ourselves we must lower ourselves we must humble ourselves before we can do anything for the Lord he must increase before we can decrease he must increase James 4 10 says humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up 1 Peter 5 6 says humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time it's interesting it says that we are to humble ourselves so it's going to take an action on our own part it's going to take an active determination on our own part to humble ourselves and we know because of the life of Nebuchadnezzar that he is certainly able to abase those who are prideful we know what happened to the devil we thought that he would ascend above the
[19:16] Lord God so obviously it's much better for us to humble ourselves and allow him to lift us up in due time turn if you will to Jeremiah chapter 45 we'll look at a another slight example here Jeremiah chapter 45 Jeremiah 45 says the word that Jeremiah the prophet spake unto Barak the son of Neriah when he had written these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah saying thus saith the Lord the God of Israel unto thee O Barak thou didst say woe is me now for the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow
[20:16] I fainted in my sighing and I find no rest thus shalt thou say unto him the Lord saith thus behold that which I have built will I break down and that which I have planted I will pluck up even this whole land and seekest thou great things for thyself seek them not for behold I will bring evil upon all flesh saith the Lord but thy life will I give unto thee for I pray in all places whither thou goest so once again we see the Lord telling Barak and speaking to us as well saying this is not a time for us to seek great things for ourselves this is not what we were created for is to exalt our own selves we're here to exalt the name of the
[21:18] Lord Jesus Christ and seek great things for him this is not the time of our lifting up that time is yet future Lord willing depending on how we live our lives this is the time of our condescension this is the time for the humbling of ourselves which is again it's going to take our own effort as it says in both James and 1 Peter humble yourselves and the third thing that we're going to have to do we would have a right perspective and see things correctly eternally is to die to self you know you probably heard it said before the way up is down and there's a progression here we're going to have to defer our interests we're going to have to humble ourselves or debase ourselves and probably the most difficult thing of all is we're going to have to die to ourselves most don't and by no means is it a requirement of our salvation but if we're going to perfect our perspective and be spiritually minded we have to go that one step further and die to self we have to turn with me now if you will to Isaiah chapter 38 we'll look at something really quick here
[22:56] Isaiah chapter 38 we're going to look at the first three verses here it says in those days was Hezekiah sick unto death and Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him and said unto him thus saith the Lord set thine house in order for thou shalt die and not live then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall and prayed unto the Lord and said remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight and Hezekiah wept sore it's always been kind of a interesting thing to me that Hezekiah when he found out that he was to die would weep but of course he didn't know the things that we know he didn't have the full revelation that we have so of course
[24:06] Hezekiah if you will he wanted a little more of the old corn granted you know he was still young and he had a lot going for him as king of Judah but again he certainly didn't have the full revelation that we have now so then if we look at the spiritual application of this passage for Christians today in the year 2024 we see a man who was not ready and willing to die and how many of us as Christians when we hear the Lord say if any man will come after me let him deny himself take up his cross daily and follow me turn our face toward the wall and weep because the call is just too much you know we've just bought a piece of ground we must first go see it we've bought a yoke of oxen we want to go prove them out we've just married a wife must attain to her needs first and foremost anything anything but to die to Christ you know we can come up with all sorts of excuses because it really is it's the it's got to be one of if not the hardest thing in the Christian life is to die to self to die to self and to live for
[25:45] Christ 2nd Timothy 2 11 through 13 says it is a faithful saying for if we be dead with him we shall also live with him if we suffer we shall also reign with him if we deny him he also will deny us if we believe not yet he abideth faithful he cannot die himself the reality is we are already dead in Christ it's just a matter of whether we are allowing the new man within us to to live or whether that old man continues to show up his face and control the way we live our lives what would certainly help our perspective would be a greater desire for heaven we believe in heaven and we say we want to go to heaven we say we want to go to heaven because it certainly beats the alternative which is hell but somehow seems that we still live our lives as though heaven were the consolation prize and this life is the real prize like
[27:15] Hezekiah we turn our face toward the wall and weep at the very thought of missing out on so many things in this life we spend so much time researching our hobbies and planning our next vacation and so little time in anticipation of heaven in Philippians 1 21-24 Paul writes for to me to live is Christ and to die is game God but if I live in the flesh this is the fruit of my labor yet what I shall choose I want not for I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you the question to you would be to each of us is are we experiencing this same strait are we experiencing this same conflict in our own lives the desire to be with the
[28:24] Lord is that the greater desire or is it the desire to remain on the flesh so that we can check off a few more items from our bucket lists you know build our 401k a little bit bigger fix up that house that we just bought but we even called to be ambassadors for Christ we're called to minister unto the needs of others to shine as lights in this increasingly dark and perverse world that we live in so if we remain on that out of our pursuit is to do those things which are pleasing to the Lord and to serve him and not to remain on so that we can serve and fulfill our own personal interests that would be then my prayer for all of us is that we would have a more heavenly mindedness that we would seek to defer our interests in favor of the Lord's interest that we would debase ourselves humble ourselves that we would seek and learn how and what it means to die to self pastor it you are going to do you and as as