Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: You have your bibles. If you'll take those and turn, if you will please, to the book of Joshua, the third chapter. I'm going to read some from the third chapter and some from the fifth chapter, the book of Joshua.
I've talked with you on several occasions here about the issue of communication.
Communication between individuals can go south so easily. We can feel like we're communicating and then the message that's received may not, may not be at all what we had hoped for.
I heard about one couple, a married couple. They were born on the same day. It's very, very unus. I don't know if you know that for a married couple to share a birthday. They were not only born on the same day, they got married on their 25th birthday.
So their 40th anniversary, their 65th birthday was multiple of celebrations. They decided to go for second honeymoon to the South Pacific. They're walking on the beach and a bottle washed up in the surface. The lady pulled the bottle from the surf, pulled out the cork, and out came a huge genie.
And the genie said, it's your 65th birthday. It's your 40th wedding anniversary. I'll grant you each one free wish. The lady never hesitated. She said, I know exactly what I want. I want a diamond ring bigger than Elizabeth Taylor's. And on her finger a diamond ring bigger than the star of India gleaming in the South Pacific sunshine.
The husband, now inspired, said, I want my wish. The genie said, your wish is my command. He said, I want a wife who's 30 years younger than I am. And poof, just like that. He was 95.
I don't know why women enjoy that joke so much.
Makes me a little nervous.
I know this. If I'm ever preaching anywhere and Bill Belichick is in the audience, I'm telling that joke.
It's a different matter, however, when we are hearing and responding, dealing with communication from God, then it becomes a whole different thing. And here is a passage of scripture in which God speaks so directly and so profoundly in its implications and applications to Joshua and the people of Israel, but also to us.
So Joshua, chapter three.
Let me, let me take just a moment before I read it and make sure. You know where we are in the, in the story, in the, in the Exodus story.
So you know that Moses led the people of Israel out of bondage in Egypt. And then they came straight through the Mount Sinai, received the law. And then many people think that somehow or another it was God's plan for them to wander 40 years in the wilderness. They went straight to Kadesh Barnea, which is on the southern part of the Holy Land. And God's plan was for them to go in right then and take the land.
But their lack of faith and their fear, they backed away. They refused to go in.
Only Joshua and Caleb had faith for it. Everybody else backed away. And they wandered in the desert then for 40 years, basically just waiting for that generation to. To die and pass away.
Now there is a second generation. These are hardened desert warriors born and bred in the desert. These are. This is a tough new generation. And they have come now to the second time to invade the Holy Land. This time they didn't come to Kadesh Barnea. They came to the eastern border of the current nation of Israel, the Jordan River. And they're on what is now the. The Jordanian side. And they're going to cross over into what is now called the west bank.
And. And ahead of them is the city of Jericho. And they're just now there at that place. And that's where we pick up the story.
Chapter three. And Joshua rose early in the morning and they removed from Shittim and came to the Jordan, the Jordan river, that is, he and all the children of Israel and lodged there before they passed over.
And it came to pass after three days that the officers went through the host and commanded the people, saying, when you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God and the priests, the Levites bearing it, then you shall remove from your place. What's a more American way to say remove from your place? Get up.
Get up and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it about 2,000 cubits by measure. Come not near unto it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way heretofore.
And Joshua said unto the people, sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. And Joshua spoke unto the priests, saying, take up the Ark of the Covenant and pass over before the people. And they took up the Ark of the Covenant and went before the people. And the Lord said unto Joshua, this day I will begin to magnify you in the midst of all Israel that they may know As I was with Moses, and so I will be with you. And thou shalt command the priests that bear the Ark of the Covenant, saying, when you come to the brink of the water of the Jordan river, you shall stand still in the Jordan, meaning in the Jordan River.
Okay, now turn to chapter five, and I want to read beginning verse 13.
Read to the end of the chapter.
And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked. And behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand.
And Joshua went unto him and said unto him, art thou for us or for our adversaries?
And he that is the man with the sword said, nay, but as the captain of the hosts of the Lord am I now come.
And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and did worship, and said unto him, what saith my Lord unto his servant? And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so. Put your hand on your Bible, if you will, and let's pray.
Heavenly Father, with our hand upon the Word, and our hearts and minds as open as we know how to get them, we ask you to do all the rest.
Brush aside everything that would confuse or distort or block your communication with us.
Penetrate into the inner self of every one of us. Those who long for a word from you and those who don't. The same that when we leave here today, we'll say, surely the Lord has dealt with us.
We'll believe you for it in advance. In the mighty name Jesus, the strong, Son of God.
Amen. Amen and amen.
The moment of God.
The moment of God. That place, time, space, where God says, now all the waiting is over, all the delay. Now is the moment. It's interesting. Those moments in Scripture are often preceded by the adjective suddenly, which is kind of humorous in a way. The second chapter of Acts. And suddenly there was the sound of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled all the house. But in what sense? Suddenly, Joel had prophesied about the coming of the Holy Spirit 650 years earlier.
So they've waited 650 years. But suddenly it comes.
These people have waited to go in and take the land 430 years in bondage, in Israel, in Egypt. Now 40 years, wondering the 470 years they've waited.
And now it's the moment. Now this is it. Now we're going to go in and take the land. I want to say to you, this day, this service, this church service, not speaking in some theoretical sense or theological sense. This church service is the moment of God. God is here. God is ready to speak. God wants to call and deal with us in our lives. I've always said this, not trying to run your people off, Pastor, but it's not safe to go to a spirit filled church.
It's not safe. It's good for you to be here. It's not safe.
Every time you get out of your car in the parking lot of this church and put your Bible under your arm and start in here, there should be a lump in your throat.
You should be saying to yourself, God could do anything in there today.
God can deal with anything in my life. Search me out, speak to me, try me, challenge me, call me. He can do anything because God is present in the house. This is the moment of God. God wants to deal with us now. We're at the bank of the Jordan River. The delay is over. Compromise and rebellion in the desert are finished. Murmuring and discontent has stopped all of that. Now is the time. It's his timing, his calling, his place, his power. At the end of the whole thing, God says to Joshua, this is holy ground.
What makes it holy ground?
It's not Mount Sinai. He's just on a riverbank between the Jordan river and the city of Jericho. It's holy ground because God is there.
This is holy ground. And this is the moment of God.
Now God says, I've got some things to say to you before we go in and take the Holy Land.
And the first thing is kind of awkward for us to hear.
He says, sanctify yourselves for tomorrow. I want to do wonders in your midst. Now sanctify yourselves. Sounds odd. It rings odd in the ears of contemporary evangelical Christians because we assign sanctification as the property of God. That the power of the Holy Spirit comes to sanctify us. God sanctifies us. We pray, oh, God, sanctify me. Why then would he say, sanctify yourselves?
So to sanctify ourselves means to clean up, to clean out, to get everything off of us. So God is saying, I don't want you to cross the Jordan river and go in and possess the Holy Land while you still have stuff in your tent and from Egypt or from the desert, this is a new place. All the challenges of the desert, all the things of living off of manna, all of the water from the rock, all the opportunities, miracles, signs, difficulties, fights, struggles of the desert, that's all over, that's finished.
So he says, now we're going to do a new thing. But you can't go in here and do a new thing till you clean up your garage.
You got to get some stuff out and off of us.
And that's where the Holy Spirit moves in and probes us and deals with us. I've always said the Holy Ghost is kind of like an American physician. You ever go to a doctor with a sore place? What's the problem? I got a sore place right on my arm, right here. What's the first thing he'll do? Push on it.
He says, does that hurt? You say, yes, it hurts. I told you that. That's why I'm here.
And does he quit? No. He says, what about if I do this? What if I. What if I hit it? What if I kick it like that? So he just keeps on trying to see where and how to what extent it hurts. That's the way the Holy Spirit is. He just keeps moving in, searching. He comes in a worship service where we think we're safe. And God says that. Does that hurt?
How about if I do this? Does that hurt? That's how God moves in on us. God deals with us. Sanctify yourselves means get everything out. Deal with it. I want to do stuff in your midst, but we've got things we've got to get out.
I was preaching at a church in Georgia. And I'd been invited to do a series on the Holy Spirit. Sunday morning, Sunday night, and then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I preached Sunday morning. Before the Sunday night service. A businessman in the church asked to meet with me and his pastor in the study.
He said, I want to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit so badly. I've wanted it for years. But he said, I've got something blocking it. I said, do you know what it is? He said, absolutely, I know what it is.
He said, I own an extremely prosperous, very successful automobile dealership. I've made a great deal of money.
But he said, I bought it with stolen money.
He said, many years ago, I had a warehouse full of inventory. It wasn't going anywhere. And I burned the whole thing down. And I got away with it.
And he said, I took that insurance fraud and bought this dealership. And he said, nobody knows it. My wife doesn't know it. Nobody knows it. And it's nagged at me. And it's between me and God. And until I deal with it, I know I can never move on with God.
And he said, I want you men to pray for me. He said, tomorrow morning I'm Going to take my lawyer and go see the district attorney.
And he said, I want you to pray for me.
He said, do you think I'm going to have to go to jail?
I said, sir, I'm neither a lawyer nor the child of a lawyer. I have no idea.
What I would ask you is this.
Would you rather stay out here with this thing buried in your soul, or would you rather get it cleaned up, cleaned out and do a stretch in prison? He said, there's no question. I've got to deal with this. I'm going tomorrow.
I said, all right, then I have a couple of suggestions.
Take your lawyer, but don't go see the da. Go see the insurance company.
You defrauded them. Go see them.
He did. He came back Monday night and he said, I have had a miracle. He said, my attorney and I sat down with the insurance company in Atlanta, went to the headquarters in Atlanta, sat down with them, told them the whole thing. And they said, we have no mechanism for receiving money.
There's no. We don't have anything to take money back once we paid it, we can't take it back. That's crazy. That sounds like the federal government.
But they said, we don't. Nobody can pay it, so we don't have anything. There's no accounting mechanism to take the money back. They said, it's gone, it's over with, we've forgotten it.
They said, the other thing is it's past the statute of limitations.
They said it's finished.
I'm not saying that anybody here, certainly not everybody, burned down a warehouse at some point and cheated an insurance company.
What I am saying is the Holy Spirit wants to deal with our lives, wants to clean up, clean out, empty everything, anything. Any unforgiveness, any attitude, any hurt, any sin, any bondage, any habit, any strong God says, I want to do wonders. And I want everything like that out of the way. Sanctify yourselves. Anything, anything that looks like Egypt, anything that sounds like the desert. This, he says, we're going into the Holy Land and I need you to be cleaned up and cleaned out before we move in.
The second thing is this.
God says, I want to be. The reason I'm doing that is because I want to do miracles. And in your midst have we become so urbane and sophisticated, so capable in ourselves, that we no longer need the miraculous power of God?
God hasn't gone anywhere. Our God is a miracle working God. God wants to do signs and wonders and miracles. He wants to heal the sick. He wants to cast out demons. He Wants to do things in our midst. And I'm not speaking again.
This sermon is not some theoretical sermon for the Internet. This sermon is for life fellowship in Athens. I'm saying God wants to do miracles in this church. God wants to show up.
He wants us to live and move and operate in miracle faith to live not only expecting his convicting presence to probe us in a worship service, but his healing and miraculous presence to show up and do miracles that we cannot accomplish, accomplish ourselves. We have to live in that kind of expectant faith.
When I received the baptism of the Holy spirit, I was 28, right at the end of the Civil War. And it's rude to laugh at a guest speaker pastor. Work with your people a little bit.
And I was a Methodist minister and just looking for somebody I could talk to about it. I didn't know anybody. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was alien language to my culture. And I wanted to be with people that would act like I hadn't lost my mind. And I came under the teaching and ministry of an elderly non denominational Pentecostal missionary couple in Mexico.
They were quite old. They were about 15 years younger than I am now.
And they were just. They were people of tremendous faith and power and they really impacted my life.
When the old man passed away, the elderly lady took on the ministry. And if anything, she made the ministry go bigger and faster than the husband had. She was one of those, there's a whole tribe of these sort of single missionary ladies. I call them God's battle axes.
Nobody, including God much tells them no about anything. And she was like that. So she called me one day at home in Atlanta and she said, you and I are going to build a Bible school in Mexico. There's a little town, Mexico. They want a Bible school and we're going to build it. I said, we are? She said, yes, I'm going to build the building and you're going to buy the land. It didn't feel like she was open to any discussion on the thing.
So I called five other spirit filled Methodist preachers and we worked together, raised the money, bought the land, she built the building. And she called and said, now why don't you guys all go in my van, we'll drive from Georgia all the way to Mexico and we'll do the dedication of the building. So we drove all the way down there, checked in our hotel. The night before the dedication, we drove out to the property to get our first tour of the building. When we drove in the compound, I saw the GC when he Saw that old lady's van. A look of terror came over his face, and he came to the van. Senora Ayo, no problema.
We've got a problem. We got a problem.
And he said, look, this is not my fault. He said, I dug the well. The well filled up. And he said, the well has gone dry.
He said, I've done everything. It's not the pump. I've tested it. I run it. The pump is perfect. The well is dry. And he said, I've punched holes all over this compound.
There's no water.
Well, it's a disaster.
We built a building out in the countryside outside a small town in Mexico, and there's no water. There's no county water. There's nothing to do. It's ruined.
It's completely useless.
It's a disaster. The next day, we're going to have the dedication, the alcalde. The mayor is coming out to cut the ribbon, the whole deal. And it's a disaster.
So the other preachers and I gathered around the well and joined hands, started praying what we thought was prayer and faith. That old lady waited a few minutes, and finally she said, get back. Get back. She said, that's the worst praying I've ever heard in my life.
She stepped over to that well, and she looked up at heaven and said, look at this.
She said, what do you have to say to this?
She turned around to us and said, let's go get some Mexican food.
We went back into town, ate Mexican food, went to our hotel rooms. If she ever gave it another thought, I have no idea. We went back the next morning.
My witness, that well was full of water, and it's never run dry.
We. We must remember, this is a. This whole thing. Church, faith, life in the spirit. This is a God thing. We need God, and we need God's miraculous power. And he is ready to pour it out on us. I want to do wonders in your midst.
The third thing is this, however. He says, there are some things I expect of you. God says, I want to do wonders in your midst. But he says, when the priests and the Levites pick up that Ark of the Covenant, remember, they're not allowed to put it in any kind of a vehicle. They can't put it on a cart or anything. They carry it on staves on their shoulders. And he says, when you carry that Ark of the Covenant, going to part the Jordan river ahead of you like I parted the Red Sea. But there's a big difference at the Red Sea, remember, Moses stretches out the rod and the Red Sea parts. You remember when Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea?
When Moses lifted out the rod and the Red Sea parted? It says they walked through on dry land.
But God says, at the Jordan River, I'm going to duplicate that miracle, but we're going to do it different. I want the priest carrying the Ark of the Covenant to wade out into the river before I part it.
Now, it's wrong of me, but I do it all the time, don't you? I project my carnal humanity onto people in the Bible.
I think that they must have thought as wickedly as I do. Anybody else do this? I think about those priests carrying that Ark of the Covenant. Remember Joshua? God has spoken to Joshua. He's the only one that heard God's voice. The priest didn't.
So Joshua says, take the Ark of the Covenant and wait out in the river.
And I can just see.
Some of those guys must have been saying, this does not feel good.
Why not part it first? It is. It is God speaking to us. There are times I may expect you to obey, to step out in faith. There are times when I'm going to call on you to act, believe something in a way that will open the supernatural, miraculous power of God.
I was speaking at a Holy Spirit conference with another man named Mark, my friend Mark Niswander. And the first couple of sessions, it just felt flat or something. It didn't seem to be going anywhere. And I said to Mark, is this. Does this feel wrong? He said, something is flat.
He said, I feel that God wants to do something, and something. Somebody is standing in the way.
So he went to the pulpit that night and he said that.
And he said, we're just going to have a prayer now. I want to have a prayer. And let's pray that God will move aside whatever is blocking the power of the Holy Spirit.
And he said, will you bow your heads and let's pray? That's all he said. And the lady in the back said, oh, all right.
And she got up and walked up to the front and put a diamond ring on the platform. She said, last night, God told me to give away my diamond ring. And she said, it's bothered me for 24 hours. And she said, okay, here it is. And the power of the Holy Spirit fell on that conference. I mean, people were moved deeply and powerfully. Now, listen to me. I'm not trying to get your diamond ring.
Just saying that there can come those moments in life where God says, step out in faith.
I'm going to do a miracle. I'm Going to do something wonderful, but I'm going to expect you to take the first step and then I'll part the water. There are times when he parts the water before we get there.
There are other times when he says, wait in.
Then he says, when you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord of Hosts, which is an Old Testament type for the Holy Spirit, the presence of God in the camp.
When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord of Hosts moving through the camp, get up and go after it.
The one great. The one thing that really hinders a move of God in any church is when God is moving and people won't follow.
When people sit where they are, they grip the rails, they won't follow. He says, when you sense the Holy Spirit is moving, that's the moment of God. Don't delay, don't hesitate, don't be fearful. Get up and go after it. Follow it. Don't miss the moment of God.
I was preaching years and years ago when I first began in evangelism and was just a tough time. And I was driving home from a small, small church in a very difficult and impoverished southern state to remain unnamed, Mississippi and about. I had to drive all the way home because they hadn't given me enough money to stop in a motel one night. That night, about three o' clock in the morning, trying to get back to Atlanta. I stopped to about 3 in the morning at a very high dollar restaurant, Waffle House.
And it was pretty empty. So I went in the back booth and I just made my order and about eight or ten motorcycles came up. These guys and their girls came in and they were loud and everything. And I thought, oh, man. This one couple sat right in the booth next to me. The guy had his back to me and the girl was straight away from me. And they were arguing when they sat down and it got worse and louder. And finally he said, reached across that table and he slapped her so loud that slap rang out of the whole thing. And he got up and went to the restroom.
And I said, are you okay?
She said, are you a minister?
I said, well, yes, I am a minister.
Why did you think so? She said, well, I saw you say prayer over your breakfast. I said, well, other people do pray, but I said, yes, I happen to be a minister. She said, my dad's a pastor.
I said, young lady, let me ask you to come with me.
Don't leave with this guy. I said, if he'll slap you in a public restaurant today, he'll beat you half to death. Tomorrow.
I said, this is going to go badly. Stay with me. We'll call your dad. I'll call him. I'll try to take you home. And she said, my dad doesn't want me back. I said, it doesn't matter. We'll find somebody. I'll help you. I'll get you someplace. Don't do this.
He came out of the bathroom. They were leaving. He went to the door and he said, melanie, come with me right now. I said, don't go, Melanie. Don't go. Stay with me. I'll take care of you. I promise. We'll call the cops. I'll protect you. Stay with me. He said, melanie, come now or I'll never see you again.
I thought, she'll jump at that.
She looked at me with tears streaming down her face and she said, look at me.
Can't you see it's too late?
And she left with him.
That girl has haunted me for 30 years.
Listen to me. I don't know who's in the house. I don't know what you've done. I don't know where you've been. I don't know how bad you think it is, but listen to me. It's not too late.
It's not too late.
God, the God of grace and redemptive love is here. He's in the house, and it's not too late.
When you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of hosts, when you feel the Holy Spirit move through the room, the only thing you have to do is get up and go after it.
Then the story ends with this remarkable little moment.
They cross Drashi, the Jordan river parts. They go through and they camp on the beach. And ahead of them is the city of Jericho.
And they spend the night. And the next day they're going to have to deal with Jericho. And from the direction of Jericho, there comes a man with a sword in his hand.
Now, that's the only description, but there must have been something more about him. There must have been something arresting in some way. Not just a guy. He could have sent a whole battalion of soldiers out there and kill him. What was there about this guy? And Joshua says, I'll go out and meet him myself. That's pretty interesting. He's about 85 years old.
So he goes out to meet this guy and he says, are you with us?
Are you with the people at Jericho? Are you on our side? Are you on the enemy's side?
And this guy says, no, you don't understand the question.
I am the captain of the Lord of hosts, not you.
I am the captain of the Lord of hosts. The question is not whose side I'm on. The question is whose side are you on?
And then he says to Joshua, this is holy ground.
This is holy ground.
Why is it holy?
Why is it holy? This is just a river bank with the Jericho, with the city of Jericho right there. It's holy because God is there.
This is holy ground.
God is here.
Not in some theoretical sense. Listen to what I'm telling you. God is here. The Lord is here. He's in the house.
He says, I want you to clean up, clean out, get the junk out of your personal garage.
Come before me, believe me, for signs and miracles. I'm going to do new things in life, fellowship, and I'm going to take you places and show you things that you've never seen before.
Because I'm here and because this is holy ground. What I need you to do is obey me, step into the river, operate by faith, and let me do everything else.
And that is how you end with thus saith the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord.
In this place today, to people in this room, God is dealing with you.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on at DrMark Rutland or visit his website, drmarkrutland.com where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
