From His Heart

Speaker 1

Right now in your life, do you really want to walk with the Lord in victory? Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

Speaker 2

We walk in evil days, and we have to be careful how we walk. And we have to know the principles for spiritual victory. If you don't know the principles for spiritual victory, it's no wonder that you don't experience a lot of victory. You mostly experience the agony of defeat.

So I want to share with you today three principles. They're very basic, but they're very essential if you're going to walk in victory. If I'm going to walk in victory.

Speaker 1

How can you live a life of spiritual victory? Is it even possible in these extremely challenging times that we all face? As we're about to find out in today's edition of From His Heart, the answer is yes, there can be spiritual victory, especially in challenging times.

This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve and the lesson today. Do you want to walk in victory? It's from his 10-lesson series, Rising to the Challenge, a study of the Book of Joshua.

Here is the absolute truth: when you listen to and apply the truths that you're going to hear, you'll learn how to experience true victory. Right now, open your Bible, if you can, to the Book of Joshua, chapter seven, and let Pastor Jeff Shreve show you how to walk in victory.

Speaker 2

Listen. The Christian life is described as a battle. It's not a playground. It's a battleground. And the Lord tells us to put on the full armor of God. Why? Because we have to deal with the world. We have to deal with the flesh. We have to deal with the devil. Your adversary, the devil, Peter says, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. And when you give your heart and life to Jesus Christ, he saves you and he comes to live in your life. He comes to live in your heart by the person of the Holy Spirit. And God wants us to be victorious. He's given us everything to be victorious in the Christian life.

But here's the sad reality for so many Christians. You're not experiencing the thrill of victory. You're experiencing the agony of defeat. And if you don't know the principles for spiritual victory, it's no wonder that you don't experience a lot of victory. You mostly experience the agony of defeat. So I want to share with you today three principles. They're very basic, but they're very essential if you're going to walk in victory. If I'm going to walk in victory, essential number one.

Principle number one, you must believe the truth concerning God's character. Concerning the character of God. The scripture says in Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 6, without faith, it's impossible to please God. For he who comes to God must believe that he is God, is real, and that he is number two, a rewarder of those who seek. So let's look at Joshua, chapter seven. Let's see these three principles as they work out, because we're going to see them in Joshua's defeat and then we see them in Joshua's victory.

So Joshua, chapter seven, you remember Joshua six is the battle of Jericho, and they win that. And it is amazing, the power of God for the walls of Jericho to fall. And then it says in Joshua 7:2. Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to AI, which is near Beth Aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, go up and spy out the land. So the men went up and spied out AI, and they returned to Joshua and said to him, ah, don't let all the people go up. Only about 2 or 3,000 need to go up to AI. Do not make all the people toil up there, for they are few.

So about 3,000 men from the people went up there, but they fled from the men of AI. And the men of AI struck down about 36 of their men and pursued them from the gate as far as Sheborom and struck them down on the descent. So the hearts of the people melted and became as water. Not good. Verse 6. Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell on the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord. Until the evening both he and the elders of Israel. And they put dust on their heads.

And Joshua said this to the Lord. Verse 7. Alas, O Lord God, why did you ever bring this people over the Jordan? Only to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. Oh, if only we'd been willing to dwell beyond the Jordan. Oh, Lord, what can I say? Since Israel has turned their back before their enemies, for the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it. And they will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name?

Joshua is in meltdown mode. And I'm glad that this passage is in here. You know, when the Bible paints a story of a man, it paints him warts and all. Joshua is a great man of faith. He's a great man of God. He is a great leader, a great general, a great warrior. But right now you're seeing him having a meltdown before the Lord because he does not understand how Israel got defeated at AI. And as you read what he does, he tears his clothes, a sign of great distress. He's experiencing the agony of defeat.

He is very afraid that this is going to be curtains for God's people. He goes, we've turned our backs, we've been defeated. Now they're going to come after us. And Lord, what are you going to do for your great name, God? Did you bring us here to destroy us? Can you imagine him saying that to the Lord? Well, that sounds like when he spied out the land 40 years before that with Joshua and Caleb, the faithful spies, with the 10 faithless spies. That's the kind of stuff they would say, oh, we just knew. We can't go into the promised land. There are giants in the land. We just need to stay on the other side of the Jordan.

Or as the spies say, we need to go back to Egypt because it's safer back in Egypt. We're gonna get killed in the promised land. So Joshua says, we should never have crossed the Jordan, Lord. We should have just stayed. Been content to stay in Moab. And now we've crossed the Jordan and now we're dead meat. And why did you bring us here? To destroy us. Joshua forgot the character of God. Now he knew it and he believed it, but he forgot it at that moment.

Remember this about God. God is always good. He is always loving. He is always perfect. He is always faithful. He is always true. Always. It says in the book of Psalms, for you, Lord, are good and ready to forgive and abundant in loving kindness to all who call upon you. God is love. It tells us in first John, God never makes a mistake. He's perfect in all of his ways. He's faithful and true every word. As Solomon when he dedicated the temple, he said, Lord, not one word of your good promise has failed. Every single thing that you said you would do, you have done.

The Bible says it's impossible for God to lie. Listen, if you're going to walk in victory, if I'm going to walk in victory, we have to have down pat, down solid. The foundation of our hearts and our souls is the character of God. God is good. The Bible says in the book of James, every good and perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variation nor shadow of turning. God doesn't have a dark side. God is just light. In him there is no darkness at all.

And so we have to have down deep in our hearts that I can trust God because he's always good. He's always loving. He's always perfect. He never makes a mistake. He's always faithful. He's always true to his word. Now, what had God told? What had he told? Joshua? Hey. Every place where the soul of your foot treads, that's the land that I've given to you. And see, Joshua knew that in Joshua Chapter one. And it didn't make sense how they got beat by AI.

And here's the thing. So Joshua doesn't understand. And here's the thing. You and I are going to run into things in our lives that we don't understand. Circumstances that come up, we don't understand. When you don't understand, remember this. The problem is never with God. The problem is never with God. And Joshua's kind of. He's kind of blaming God here, God, did you bring us here to destroy us? What's the deal? God? And God has to tell him. Get up. Why have you fallen on your face?

Here's the problem. Israel has sinned. Israel, namely, one man from Israel, a man named Achan. As we talked about, Achan has sinned. Joshua didn't know that. And so he's kind of looking at God with a jaded eye, almost in the midst of his meltdown, and he's saying, God, this isn't right. And God says, the problem is not with me, Joshua. The problem is with you and your people. Israel has sinned.

Hey, when you don't understand, as the song says, when we don't understand, when we can't see his plan, when we can't trace his hand, what do we do? We trust his heart. We trust the fact that the Lord is good, that the Lord is love, that the Lord never makes a mistake, that the Lord is perfect, that the Lord's ways are right concerning everything. And we trust God. Now, I want to ask you, when you think about those adjectives, about God's character and what God says about himself in Exodus 34, the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin. Yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the fathers, on the children, and on the grandchildren, to the third and fourth generations.

Now that is God. That's who he is. God is not who you want him to be. He is who he is. Now, A.W. Tozer the theologian, said this. What you think of when you think of God is the most important thing about you. So I want to ask you, what do you think of when you think of God? Do you think of God as this being who is always good, always loving, always perfect, always faithful, always true? Or is he something less than that to you? Is he sometimes good? Is he sometimes loving? Is he sometimes perfect? God's perfect on most things.

Listen, you're either perfect or you're not perfect. God doesn't make any mistakes. Ezekiel, chapter 18. The people said, the way of the Lord is not right. And the Lord said, are my ways not right? No, it's your ways that are not right. My ways are right because I am holy. Holy, holy. How do you see God? It changes everything when you understand and when you surrender yourself to the fact that no matter what's going on in life, I know that God is good. I know that God loves me. I know that God doesn't make any mistakes. Nothing comes into my life that doesn't first filter through his fingers of love.

And, you know, in our day and age, we have people questioning God constantly. I mean, in the moral revolution, everyone is questioning God and the word of God. And in the day and age of transgenderism, people are saying, God, you made a mistake. I heard Bruce Jenner say, God, you made a mistake. You didn't make me right. I was supposed to be a woman, but you made me a man. Let me tell you something. God doesn't make any mistakes. He made them male and female.

There's a singer-songwriter named Sam Smith. He tweeted not too long ago. I have been at war with my gender my whole life. Well, listen, I feel for people who are at war with their gender, but here's their basic problem. They haven't come to the place where they say, God, I don't understand why these things are going on in my heart. But I know that you are perfect. You don't make any mistakes. So I'm not going to struggle with my gender. I'm going to accept how you made me and I'm going to ask you to help me work through these issues. It's totally different when you look at life that way.

The Bible says in Psalm 119 that I'm going to lift my hands to your commandments, which I love. Lifting your hands is a universal sign of surrender. And when we surrender to God's commandments, when we say, Lord, I may not understand this, but I lift my hands to this because this is your word and I need to follow you. The way of the Lord is right concerning everything, and I may be struggling with this issue, that issue, the other issue. But the struggle is, is God's word worthy to be trusted?

Hey, every word that God has promised comes to pass. As Solomon said, not one word of his good promise failed. The issue is, how am I going to deal with this, Lord? To go your way. So critical. I love in the book of Second Chronicles, when they dedicated the temple, Solomon's temple that he built for the Lord, and they dedicated the temple, and the Bible says that the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. And the glory of the Lord was on the house so heavy that the priests couldn't stand to minister. What they did was they fell on their face before the Lord and they said, truly, he is good. Truly his loving kindness is everlasting.

I remember reading that one day, and it's like it just jumped off the page. And God was saying, that's exactly right. I am good and my love is everlasting. And if you have that as the bedrock of your life, you can handle anything that comes your way. So that's the first thing: you believe the truth concerning God's character.

Second principle for victory: you pray before you proceed. That's a simple thing, isn't it? Before I'm going to do anything, before I'm going to proceed in life, I'm going to pray about my day. I'm going to pray about the issues of my day. I'm going to pray before I go into battle. Someone has well said you can do more than pray after you pray, but you can't do more than pray before you've prayed. Prayer has to come first.

Now, the defeat at AI. One of the things we see in the defeat at AI, reading through the lines, is they didn't pray. They just went for it, man. Going up against Jericho, they're consecrating the people. They're looking at Jericho's like, whoa, how are we going to ever take Jericho, man? We need God. But then they go to AI and they say, AI ha. AI is like beating a junior high school team. We can take them, no sweat. And they didn't pray and they got whipped.

Pray before you proceed. Joshua was a praying man, but he didn't pray before AI. How do we know? Because if he had prayed before AI, the Lord would have told him, don't go fight against AI. There's sin in the camp. You need to deal with the sin in the camp before you go fight any more battles. He didn't do that. He found out after the fact 36 men died because they went up to AI, prayerless. And they came back with their tail between their legs. And their hearts melted with fear.

Well, let's talk about prayerlessness. What does that reveal? Number one? Prayerlessness reveals a pride problem. A pride problem. It just does. Erwin Lutzer said this. Only desperate people pray. If you and I actually saw who we were before God, we'd know that we are always desperate. Hey, Joshua. And they knew. Joshua. And the guys, they knew. They were desperate, fighting Jericho. Because that's that walled city. The walls go up to heaven. There's no way without God's help can we ever take Jericho.

But now they face AI. We can whip AI. AI is nothing, Lord. You don't need to worry yourself about AI. We'll take care of AI. They found out very quickly they can't beat anyone without God. Not anyone. Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing, zip, zero, nada, nothing without him. And so, you know, you look at that verse in John 15, you say, well, I can't do anything without him. Nothing that matters. Nothing that's going to last.

You know, all of us as Christians, we're going to stand before the Lord one day, and he's going to evaluate our lives with faith.

Speaker 1

Fire.

Speaker 2

And we build with wood, hay, and straw, or gold, silver, and precious stone. Gold, silver, and precious stone handles the fire. Wood, hay, and straw do not.

And when Jesus said, "Apart from me, you can do nothing," you can do nothing except wood, hay, and straw. And it's going to be consumed at the judgment seat of Christ. The only way you do gold, silver, and precious stone is by depending upon the Lord, by abiding in Him.

But a prayerless person is just revealing an issue and a problem with pride. Secondly, prayerlessness always gets us into trouble.

Speaker 3

Always.

Speaker 2

Why? Because we proceed and we don't pray. So Joshua 7, they get into major trouble with AI. They lose at AI. The hearts of the people melted because they had defeat in the promised land. That wasn't supposed to happen. And they're wondering now about God's promises. They're wondering if God sent us here to destroy us. They're wondering about the character of God.

But then in Joshua, chapter nine, they have a similar kind of issue in that they don't pray. They don't lose a battle, but they get deceived because they don't pray. Look what it says in verse 3. It says, in Joshua 9. 3, when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and AI, they also acted craftily and sent out as envoys and took worn out sacks on their donkeys and wineskins, worn out and torn and mended and worn out and patched sandals on their feet and worn out clothes on themselves. And all the bread of their provision was dry and had become crumbled.

And they went to Joshua, to the camp at Gilgal. Now Gibeon was about 20, 25 miles from Gilgal where they camped. And so they came. They were next. Gibeon was next on the hit list. Joshua had defeated Jericho. He had defeated in Joshua, chapter 8 AI. Now he's going to Gibeon. That's next on the hit list. But these Gibeonites said, hey, we don't want to be next on the hit list. So we need to deceive Joshua and Israel into making a covenant with us.

So that's why they put all these old clothes on and old food, and they got it all together. And in verse six, it says, then they went to Joshua, to the camp at Gilgal, and said to him, and to the men of Israel, we have come from a far country. Now therefore, make a covenant with us. And the men of Israel said to the Hivites, perhaps you are living within our land. How then shall we make a covenant with you?

But they said to Joshua, we are your servants. Then Joshua said to them, who are you and where do you come from? And they said to him, your servants have come from a very far country. They're just lying through their teeth. And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to let them live. And the elders of the congregation swore an oath to them.

And it came about at the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, that they heard they were neighbors and that they were living within their land. They got themselves in trouble because they made a covenant with the Gibeonites, who were next on the hit list. But they didn't know that they were Gibeonites because they got deceived because they didn't pray first. You don't pray, you get yourself in trouble.

Speaker 1

This has truly been an important warning and admonition to believers everywhere to take very seriously the necessity of prayer.

Today you heard part one of the lesson, "Do You Want to Walk in Victory?" It's from Pastor Jeff Shreve's 10-message series, "Rising to the Challenge," a study of the Book of Joshua.

You can find out more about this dynamic series when you go to the listen link at fromisheart.org.

Again, today's message is "Do You Want to Walk in Victory?" Here now is Pastor Jeff with a special request for you today.

Speaker 3

Christians today are under increasing pressure to stop standing for the truth. But listen, we all know that now is not the time to shrink back. This is the time to rise up with bold faith, to stand strong in God's truth and courageously live it out no matter the cost.

And you can help us spread that word each day on this broadcast when you stand boldly with From His Heart to proclaim the real truth of God's word without compromise. In a world that wants to silence us, it's only out of love for Christ and love for the lost that Christians must refuse to water down their convictions. God's command to you and me today is the same as he gave to Joshua: Be strong and courageous.

Your gift will make this possible as together we call men, women, and young people all over the world to walk in courage and share God's truth. And to say thanks for your gift, we'll send you my brand new six-message series called Strong and Courageous, where we'll take a close look at the command God gave to Joshua. Joshua needed to know that his strength and courage came from God alone. We still need this same reminder today, and that's why I'm so grateful for your partnership to help proclaim Jesus to a lost and hurting world.

And God bless you for your courage to share the truth with the world through From His Heart Ministries.

Speaker 1

To get your copy of the series Strong and Courageous, make that gift of any amount today to fromisheart.org or call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-24253) and let us know what format you prefer: USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or an MP3 digital download.

Hey, thank you for joining us. Today on From His Heart, I'm Larry Nobles, having faith that you'll be right back here tomorrow for part two of "Do You Want to Walk in Victory?" Join us then when we'll again open up God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope. From His Heart.

Speaker 4

There is truth. There is hope that you won't always dream love he can heal every scars of real truth real love, real hope from his heart.

Speaker 1

From his heart is the listener supported Broadcast Ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve speaking the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world. Remember, no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more@fromisheart.org.