Lessons in Obedience and Divine Guidance from Joshua

### Quotes for Outreach

1. "We learned some very important lessons about not walking in presumption, not walking in an attitude of self-confidence, but continuing to rely on the Lord, continuing to trust in Him, and rely on Him, and know that whatever marching orders we got yesterday are not... And for the battle that we dealt with yesterday probably aren't sufficient for the battle that we're facing today or even tomorrow for that matter. We need to be in constant communication with the Lord." [02:23] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "Do not fear and do not be dismayed. Your Bible may say, do not be discouraged. He says, Take all the fighting men with you and arise. Go up to Ai. See, I have given it into your hand, the king of Ai and his people, his city and his land. Stop there, if you would, please, for a moment. God knew that Joshua was reeling from this, this past mistake to the point where he needed the encouragement of the Lord. Sometimes that happens in our lives too. We make mistakes. We all make mistakes, let's face it." [03:48] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "You know what? Do you know that it's not enough just to hear the Word of God? We have to believe it. We have to embrace it. We have to accept it. Because there's a lot of people who hear the Word of God. Listen, there are people who come to Calvary Chapel, Ontario on a regular basis and hear the Word of God, but they're not even saved. There are people who literally sit in these seats and who are not born again because they've heard the Word of God, and heard the Word of God, and heard the Word of God, but they've never embraced it. They've never received it. They've never believed it. At least unto salvation." [06:07] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Boy, I tell you. Guys, there is such a danger in creating our doctrinal understanding of God, the world, and His work in our lives through experience. It is so dangerous. So dangerous. So many Christians do it. Myself included. Guilty as charged. We look at life. We assess it by experience. And we come to conclusions based on that experience. And if Joshua were to do that right now, he would say, You know what? I think we're in over our heads here, guys. Because that's what experience would say to me. But God comes with His word. And He says, Joshua, don't be discouraged." [08:03] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "One of the problems with revivals in the church is that we want God to do the same thing that he did before. And we want to kind of live in the revival time. Well, this is the way God was doing it during the revival. That's wonderful but we can't do that. We can't live in the past. We have to listen for God today. You know, one of the big problems frankly in churches is that we keep things alive because we've always done it that way. You know? Have you ever seen that in churches? Why do you guys do that? We always have. But it's not working anymore." [20:14] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


### Quotes for Members

1. "And then you can have everything from that point on. But you remember the story in the previous chapter. A man by the name of Achan actually took some of what belonged to the Lord, hid it, and because of that, he made the nation of Israel liable to destruction. So when they went out to fight against the second city of Ai, they were actually routed by the men of Ai, even though it was a fairly insignificant city. Joshua fell on his face before God, cried out to the Lord, and God said to Joshua, Why are you praying? You think this is my fault? You think I'm not good on my promises? There's sin in the camp. They had to root out that sin, and that sin has now been dealt with. And now the Lord is free to once again work with Israel because that hindrance has been taken out of the way." [00:57] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "And the others came out from the city against them. So they were in the midst of Israel, meaning they were surrounded now by Israelite troops, some on this side, some on that side. And Israel struck them down until there was none left that survived or escaped. But the king of Ai they took alive and brought him near to Joshua. When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down with the edge of the sword. And all who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand, all the people of Ai." [18:24] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "So Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place of ambush and lay between Bethel and Ai to the west of Ai. But Joshua spent that night among the people. Joshua arose early in the morning and mustered the people and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. And all the fighting men who were with him went up and drew near before the city and encamped on the north side of Ai with a ravine between them and Ai. He took about 5,000 men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai to the west of the city." [16:01] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Now, you need to picture this correctly. The ark of the covenant, well, you know what, in order to picture it correctly, I've got to show you a picture, okay? Let me put this up on the screen for you because this is an actual picture in Israel of these two mountains, Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. They're that close to each other. What's going on? And Moses told them to do this before they even came into the land. He said, I want you to put yourself right in between these two mountains. Now, obviously, this is a modern picture which has dwellings and things and all that. None of that stuff would have been there, of course, back during that time. But he said, basically, they took the ark of the covenant and they put it right in the valley, okay, right down in the center. The Levites were stationed on either side of the ark of the covenant, and then they had Israelites, some on one side facing one mountain, and others on the other side of the ark of the covenant facing the other mountain." [26:02] (58 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "This passage reminds us that there must be a sacrifice. There must be a blood sacrifice in order to be redeemed from the curse of the law. So where was it they sacrificed animals? On the altar on Mount Ebal, the mountain of cursing. Because only through a blood sacrifice could that curse of the law be overcome. And that is exactly what has happened in the person of Jesus Christ who through that curse through that blood sacrifice became the one who bore our curse and redeemed us as Paul says here from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us." [30:09] (-14 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)