Diligence
in Holiness
by James Jacob Prasch, 1999
There are different aspects of
things. A parent who sees a kid growing
up every day will notice things about that kid other people won’t. But on the other hand, somebody who sees the
kid every once in a while will notice things the parent doesn’t, like how big you
got. I used to get that when I was a
kid. You have those excessively
overweight old aunties, who I’m rapidly kissing up with, and you would only see
them when somebody got married or somebody died, and it would always be the
same thing—how big you got, “Give auntie a big kiss,” and your mother goes like
this (points toward auntie).
Fellowship like this, having come
from the background it did, people who were burned by false teaching and ultimately
by the nonsense of the TB (Toronto Blessing) and all that “tuberculosis”,
meeting in an industrial unit and we had this thing that melts tar macadam to
pave the road, to try to keep warm, and not knowing if we would have the thing
the following week. Now there is a
building like this, I thank God for that and people running us down and
knocking, David here (exposing) all the error and heresy, we were teaching the
Word of God but we were the ones who got….
I don’t demean what God has done
here and I come every so often and I see the changes. I also know, as David Nokes
pointed out recently and it is something I have said myself various times, when
one church is going through a kind of struggle, you will find that there are
other fellowships going through the same kind of thing at the same time around
the country. We have a common
enemy. And it is true; it is also true
that we are called to be faithful and not successful, as man counts
success. For God, success is
faithfulness. Was Noah a successful
preacher? Well, as God counts success,
yes, he was faithful, but only seven people were saved and they were all
related to him. In the last days, we
know there will be a remnant; I accept that.
That is one side of the story, and then there is the other side of the
story.
How come even churches that teach the truth don’t seem to see much growth? How come churches that do not have false
doctrine, that are financially honest, that evangelize,
how come they don’t see much fruit? Now,
part of that can also be explained quite fairly. Because of the sin in the nation, God is not
pouring out his Spirit on the nation, but he is pouring it out in certain
places. I have often pointed out, if you
want to see your church grow, if you want to catch fish, go to where the fish
are biting--single mothers, mom and toddlers' groups on the council
estates. Those women have no man to take
care of them, those kids have no father.
A church with a clean place and a safe place for mothers to bring kids,
and those mothers come in and you witness to the mothers and you give them
coffee and the kids play, then the kids come to Sunday school; you have to fish
where the fish are biting. Don’t cast
your nets where there aren’t any. Do you
want to see people saved? Go to Gypsies. This morning, just getting a cup of coffee
over here with Alan in a shop up in West Hawtin,
taking to a Catholic women—Catholics are more open than Protestants. That is not to say don’t witness to
non-Catholics but this area of England, the Reformation never reached here,
East Langston and Merseyside. To this
day, this is a Catholic area, plus the Irish influence, that is true, you can count for part of it.
Another thing is of course that we
talk about a lot is the Gospel being discredited by the TV preachers. You know, I’ve said a lot out of necessity
about what is wrong with Benny Hinn, what is wrong
with Morris Cerullo and Wynn Lewis but sometimes I
have to say what is wrong with Jacob Prasch? I think it is right to say what is wrong with
the Assemblies of God, what is wrong with Elim, what
is wrong with the Church of England, but then I have to say “What is wrong with
Fosley Pentecostal, what is wrong with Hinley, what is wrong with Walfall,
what is wrong with the good churches.
In 1987, I got on an airplane,
kissed my wife and my two little kids goodbye, my son
was a baby, and I got on an airplane in Tel Aviv and flew to New York. When I was in New York, I was trying to
arrange financially to get the money to go to seminary and I was in New York
and I went to the neighborhood where I had lived before I immigrated to Israel,
which was near Time Square being roughly to New York something like what
Piccadilly Circus is to London, something like that only it is bigger. And there was a murder every 4-6 hours; there
were 4-6 murders a day in New York, more than half of them totally unsolved,
mainly drug dealers killing other drug dealers over territorial fights. That was the murder rate—every 4 hours a murder,
6 murders a day sometimes, children access the most unspeakable
pornography. There are Christians who
are becoming addicted to pornographic material over the internet, things they
would not go out and buy. The idiot box,
channel 4—I pray to God that that place collapses,
that thing is evil, gay, lesbian, all this stuff, smut. But there are Christians in the house and
they watch that. What’s going on?
Somebody who has had a problem with alcohol should not touch
alcohol. If you cannot use alcohol as a
beverage, it has to be a drug, you should not have it. Or, if there is somebody in your family that
has been a problem to, you shouldn’t put a stumbling block before them. You know there are Christians who are secret
drinkers. There are Christians who are
secret gamblers. I don’t mean a glass of
wine with dinner, I mean alcohol abusers.
Joshua
7:23-26: And they took them from inside the
tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the sons of Israel, and they poured
them out before the LORD. Then Joshua
and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, the silver, the mantle, the bar of gold, his sons,
his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent and all that belonged
to him; and they brought them up to the valley of Achor. [Now, in the Bible, Achor
means a place of calamity, something like that, trouble, calamitous-type
trouble.] And Joshua said, "Why
have you troubled us? The LORD will trouble you this day." And all Israel
stoned them with stones; and they burned them with fire after they had stoned
them with stones. And they raised over
him a great heap of stones that stands to this day,
and the LORD turned from the fierceness of His anger. Therefore the name of
that place has been called the valley of Achor to
this day.
This stuff was concealed it says,
buried in his tent. How spiritual I am
is not the guy you see up here talking to you, it is the guy who goes home and
how is it that he treats his wife and his children? What is buried in my
tent? What is wrong with me? What is buried in my tent that should not be
there? What is buried in your tent that
should not be there? Now, some things
could be wrong for one person and not another.
If you have a glass of wine with dinner, I don’t care about that but for
somebody else that can be a sin. But
there are some things that are wrong for all of us, things under the ban, things under the ban that can put us in the fire. It says that in Ephesians, warning
Christians, it says no fornicator shall enter the Kingdom, no liar, no
thief. Some people tend to confuse
holiness with legalism. David Wilkerson is
not perfect but he has the idea that Christians should not have TVs. I tell you what, we would be better off with
no TVs than Christian Channel Europe or TBN.
I am not saying having a TV is wrong but what is on there now? And the Christian stuff is worse and more of
a reproach than the world. I can take
Channel 4 with all of its smut; it is less dishonoring to the name of Christ
than Christian Channel Europe because they are not doing it in the name of
Jesus. What is in the tent?
I am not talking about
legalism. I am not taking about that, I
am not like that as a person, but holiness?
Yes, I know what is wrong with Hinn, I know
what is wrong with Cerullo and Colin Dye, but what is
wrong with me? I know what is wrong with
all of these churches and denominations but what is wrong with my own? If the problem is simply it is not that God
season in his sovereign grace, that he is preparing us for something that is
coming, I can live with that. If it is
that God has taken his hand off of it and he is only going to deliver the
remnant, I can live with that. But if
there are things that are buried in our tents that are causing us to experience
defeat before our enemies, we should not live with that. I don’t know.
I don’t know when things are going change, I don’t even know how things
are going to change, but I know what has to change before things can
change. I don’t know when things are
going to change, I don’t know how they are going to change, but I know what has
to change before there can be change, and what has to
change is us.
What I saw in New York can happen in
England. God bless.
There would be, in terms of crime,
nothing in England that would approach it except for the really bad council
estates in Manchester and London, there would be nothing close to what you had
in the states if they did not have the guns.
Unspeakable crime rate, worse than anything I have seen in this country
except for the really, really bad estates in London and Manchester. That would be the only thing that would be
like that. Mid-town Manhattan had 144
licensed sex shops. All over the
streets, crack cocaine dealers and heroin dealers, mainly crack cocaine now. Prostitutes,
some of them as young as 11 years old, addicted to crack cocaine controlled by
pimps who supplied the drugs. Homosexual
transvestite prostitutes, stuff that was not even natural. So much crime, so
much pornography, so much prostitution, so much drugs that the theater and
restaurant industry was being squeezed out of existence, people stopped going
to Broadway musicals, like the West End in this country. Unspeakable. Absolutely unspeakable, the worst I have ever
seen, very few believing churches, particularly in proportion to how big the
city is. After Tokyo, New York is the
second biggest metropolitan area in the developed world. The city itself is like 8 million, like
London, but the suburbs, it is like 22-23 million. Only Tokyo is bigger in the developed
world. You have places in the developing
world bigger than that but not in the developed world. So big, and very few believers, and the
preachers graveyard, people could not get off the ground, people could not get
churches going, people tried. Good
people tried; there had not been a revival in over 100 years in New York
City. David Wilkerson came to New York
and he opened a church in a little auditorium on 43rd street called
the Townhouse Theater. I stood there and
I talked to him the week he opened it, became a friend of his son, Gary, who
used to live in London. I was talking to him and he told me three months before
Jimmy Swaggart fell into what he did, David Wilkerson
told me God showed him to get away from Swaggart, to
stop publishing things in Swaggart’s magazine, Swaggart was going down and something was really
wrong. Three months later he was proved
right. Four and a half years before the
war in the Gulf he described it to me.
This was the same week, in New York, 1987, October, when the stock
markets of the world crashed, remember that?
I was there. He said “The stock
markets of the world are going to crash tomorrow.” And they did.
In a one-to-one conversation he told me what was going to happen to Swaggart; it a one-to-one conversation he told me about the
war in the Gulf. I am not saying the man
is perfect; I am not saying I always agree with him. I am not saying that he does not have his problems
but he is a man of God who loves Jesus and he is honest and I was there the
week he opened that place.
Last Christmas I was back in my
native New York, my family was from here in Merseyside and that, and Manchester
but I am from New York as you can tell by my Robert DeNiro
accent, Bugs Bunny, James Cagney, Barbra Streisand, etc. I took my wife and my daughter with me to
Time Square Church, to the mid-week meeting, only it is no longer in that
auditorium on 43rd street, now it is on 51st Street in a
big, huge theater. It moved to a second
theater but it outgrew that and now it has a big theater. Unfortunately, there is no longer a theater
big enough to hold that many people.
Probably Radio City might be but that would be about it. If you get there on time you won’t get a
seat. On a Sunday it is multiple
services, they cue up an hour ahead of time to get into the building.
I taught a Bible study at their
rescue mission once, called The Upper Room.
Every day in the Upper Room, there are pimps being saved, prostitutes
being saved, homosexuals being saved, drug addicts being saved, alcoholics
being saved, homeless people being saved, every day. The crime in New York City has gone down 30%
in the last 4 years. Of the 144 licensed
sex shops in mid-town Manhattan, all but 47 have closed down and they are in
financial trouble. 42nd
Street, which became un-walkable, now it is Walt
Disney shops. The murder rate in New
York City has gone below the 1964 level.
Imagine less murder than there was nearly 35 years ago. I saw the real thing. I saw the real thing.
The heartbreak, it began as disgust,
then it came to heartbreak, then it came to just anger. Every time I drive by that Mormon place I
want to vomit out the window, up here on the motorways. Why are they the fastest growing Christian
sect in this country? Why is Islam the
fastest growing, institutionalized religion?
Yes, we know about all the leaders of the corrupt denominations and all
the hype, we know about that, but is there more to
it? I don’t know why anybody would go
for a counterfeit when the real is so obvious.
Why would somebody go to Sunderland, or Holy
Trinity ‘bedlam’ or Pensacola when all you’ve got to do is go to New York? Just go to the Gypsy caravan site. In Spain and Portugal eighty percent of the
Gypsies are born again, eighty percent!
There is not a Gypsy family in this country that does not have believers
in it. Why do people want to go for the
counterfeit, the fad, when you can go to the real? You can’t get into David Wilkerson’s
church. Believe me, Time Square was
hell! Unless you went to Brixton or the
north side of Manchester, really bad, you would not see anything anywhere near
as bad. Believe me, if that can happen
in New York City, if God can move that way in Time Square, I don’t believe
there is any place that he can’t move that powerfully. If that can happen in New York, it can happen
in London and in Liverpool, I am convinced.
I know what I saw. I am talking
first hand now; I know what I saw. They
banned Toronto, they banned it! Another
Pentecostal but they banned it, same in Italy, they banned it, Gypsies banned
it, but that is only part of the story.
God’s sovereign grace, He is moving among them, that is also part of the
story, but is there another side of the story?
Is there something in my life, is there something in our ministry, is there something in the churches that are associated with
us, are there things that are another aspect of why things are not working?
Now, I am not saying that God is not working at all, he is. He has done things here in Henley and he is
still doing things here in Henley, but this is nothing like Milan or New York,
it is nothing like the Gypsy’s although they have their problems.
Turn with me, please, to the book of
Joshua, Chapter 5:
Joshua
5:1: Now it came about when all the kings
of the Amorites who were beyond the
Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard how the LORD had
dried up the waters of the Jordan before the sons of Israel until they had
crossed, that their hearts melted, and there was no spirit in them any longer,
because of the sons of Israel.
Now the natural propensity of the
flesh, when God blesses us and he gives us victory is to become proud, to
become swelled up and think it is because of us instead of him. You know, in Israel it is popularly believed,
among most people, that they were inundated with themselves after the
tremendous, unbelievable victory of the Six Day War in 1967, they thought they
were supermen, Ubermensch, invincible. In the Yom Kippur War, they almost lost and
realized they weren’t and even secular Israelis had some kind of sense “God
gave us that victory, it was not us.”
Notice what a faithful leader like Joshua says. After God blesses them and after others see
it, they weren’t so elated.
Joshua
5:2-9:
At that time the LORD said to Joshua, "Make for yourself flint
knives and circumcise again the sons of Israel the second time." So Joshua made himself flint knives and
circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth. [Which means like the
“mound of foreskins.”] And this
is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the people who came out of Egypt
who were males, all the men of war, died in the wilderness along the way, after
they came out of Egypt. For all the
people who came out were circumcised, but all the people who were born in the
wilderness along the way as they came out of Egypt had not been
circumcised. For the sons of Israel
walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, that is, the men of war who came out of
Egypt, perished because they did not listen to the voice of the LORD, to whom
the LORD had sworn that He would not let them see the land which the LORD had
sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. [Now there is much typology in here but let
us look at what it says:] And their
children whom He raised up in their place, Joshua circumcised; for they were
uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them along the way. Now it came about when they had finished
circumcising all the nation, that they remained in
their places in the camp until they were healed. Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Today I
have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you." So the name of that
place is called Gilgal [meaning rolling, galgal is wheel, gal is wave, galgal
is literally “wave-wave, meaning wheel, and Gilgal
means the act of the rolling] to this day.
[Because it is where God rolled away, literally, rolled away the
reproach of Egypt.]
Now right after this they entered
the land, they cross the Jordan and get ready to attack Jericho, but before
they could claim this victory, this next big victory, they had to circumcise
the people to get rid of the reproach of Egypt.
Most of you know from our recordings, 1st Corinthians 10,
etc., what is Egypt a picture of in the Bible?
The world! What does circumcision
represent in the Bible? Conversion. Look at
Romans 2:28:
Romans
2:28-29: For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is
circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and
circumcision is that which is of the heart, [As in Jeremiah 9:25-26, as in
Ezekiel 44:9, as in Deuteronomy 10:16, Jeremiah 4:4, etc. Circumcise your hearts.]
It was the second generation. Now remember, the first generation could not
enter the Promised Land, only the second.
The old creation cannot go to heaven, only the new one. But it goes further than this. There is a problem when our children grow up
in Christian families. It is not always
easy to tell when your kid is a believer if he grew up in it. Somebody like me saved out of the occult and
the hippie thing, I knew when I got saved.
But when a kid grows up, and my kids, when they were little kids I used
to tell them in Hebrew, in Israel, David and Goliath and all this, and stories
from the Bible, Joshua and Jericho, they grew up in it. Shabbat, Sunday school, that is all they ever knew. Parents who are not perfect, who have faults
but believed, Christian school, stuff like that, that is all they ever
knew. It is not always easy to
tell. It begins with the second
generation, but it is also the second generation of a church. I have been saying for a few years and a
number of people have been saying, including John MacArthur, who I don’t always
agree with on certain points, but mainly he is right. A lot of people that put their hands up in
these meetings and come forward at these stadium things, these Luis Palau
things, and Billy Graham things and a lot of people under the charismatic, they
were never saved. They were never born
again. “Depart from me, I never knew
you,” not that you are backslidden, “I never knew you.” Even though there are miracles, signs,
wonders, a lot of these people were never saved. I am convinced that a lot of these people in
Sunderland and stuff like that are people who were never saved. Before you can go any further, we’ve got to
come to this point. They were riding on
the things God did in the past. They
knew and everybody else knew how God blessed them in the past. You realize the only thing that the
Assemblies of God in Great Britain or the United States, or the Elim Church has to look upon is its past, is a noble
history? The only thing the Baptist
Union in this country has worth cherishing is its history? The only thing the Church of England has worth
noting in this country is its history?
The inertia of what you were will only carry you so far for so long and
then if you are not living up to your history it becomes something dead that
somebody else will pick up but it is no longer yours any more. The true Methodists are not the Methodist
Church, the true Methodists are like the Nazarenes, the people like that are
the ones who stayed loyal to Wesley’s ideas, not the other ones, and even they
are getting weird in America, ecumenical and all sorts. They didn’t under Joshua, ride on their
inertia. They realized that this idea of
conversion, of making sure the next generation is circumcised, making sure that
everyone is right was necessary before they could move on.
You know, no church should stop
preaching the gospel. Now, it is wrong
to preach to the converted week after week after week, like the old Brethren
and the Baptist, every Sunday night preaching the gospel to the already saved
but every time I hear the gospel preached it still benefits me, if it’s the
true gospel. I still need to hear the
basic facts, “Jesus loves me, this I know, the Bible
tells me so.” I know that I am a sinner
and that God became a man to take my sin, I need to hear that. You can never hear that stuff too much. Now, if that is all you ever hear and that is
all you know, there is a problem and if you are only preaching that to the
converted that is wrong. We always have
to keep going back to the basic things.
Rolling away the reproach of Egypt, the reproach of the world, but now
we get to the real issue. They do that
and God gives them this spectacular victory at Jericho, and we deal with this
on the rapture recording and we deal with this on the Autumn Feasts of Israel
recordings and how it teaches about the rapture and everything, and the
trumpets and all that, but what happens after Jericho?
You know, we are just as vulnerable
after a victory as we are after a defeat.
That is why Paul says “Let he who thinks he stands take heed, lest he
fall.” We are just as vulnerable, not
only as individuals and as families but as churches after victory as well as
defeat. Joshua never let the victory go
to the people’s heads. Let us see what
happens when God’s people lose sight of that.
It certainly applies to Israel and the Jews, but as 1 Corinthians 10
tells us and as Romans 15, these things were written so that we would not make
the same mistake. Let us see what
happens after Jericho.
At the end of chapter 6, the last
verse, where the text is divided now, although it was not divided in the
original Hebrew:
Joshua
6:27: So the LORD was with Joshua, and his
fame was in all the land.
Praise God when there is a famous
man who is humble of spirit and God blesses him, but the real test is, not what
happens when he is around, what happens after he is gone? What happened to Israel after Joshua was gone? What happened to the Baptists after Spurgeon
was gone? What happened to the
Methodists after Wesley was gone to be with the Lord?
Joshua
7:1-2: But the sons of Israel acted
unfaithfully in regard to the things under the ban, for Achan,
the son of Carmi, [like Carmi in Israel, like the horns, that’s Carin is horn, Carmi El is like “My flourishing place,
something like that] the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah [meaning seed], from the tribe of Judah, took some of
the things under the ban, therefore the anger of the LORD burned against the
sons of Israel. Now Joshua sent men from
Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven, [meaning “the
house of the stone”] east of Bethel [near the house of God], and said to them,
"Go up and spy out the land." So the men went up and spied out
Ai.
Now this replays the same thing that
happens when they spied out the land the first time, remember? The same basic approach, a reconnaissance
mission and the spies would go bring back the report. Remember the first time they came back and
they brought grapes with them on the pole, that is the symbol of the Ministry
of Tourism in Israel today, grapes on the pole and then they sent the spies in
to Rahab?
Well, now they are doing the same thing, it is a reconnaissance mission
in anticipation for the attack.
Joshua
7:3-4:
And they returned to Joshua and said to him, "Do not let all the
people go up; only about two or three
thousand men need go up to Ai; do not make all the people toil up there, for
they are few." 4 So
about three thousand men from the people went up there, but they fled from the
men of Ai.
Second mistake, if the first mistake
is trying to run on the inertia of God’s past blessings, taking it for granted,
the second mistake was not so much underestimating your enemy but
overestimating yourself. This text shows
us that there were about 12,000 in the city of Ai and they thought “We are
invincible, 4 to 1; we can beat them easy, we did it all the other times.” This is pride, but it is something else. “Don’t send everybody up.” The fellowship must act as a fellowship. The fellowship must act as a fellowship. Now, there is a place for Gideon’s Army, for
the elite, but the whole army in the elite had to act, the whole 300. What is the reason people won’t go
witnessing? Are there valid
reasons? Fair enough, but a crowd draws
a crowd. There are certain things that
tell how spiritual you are, how spiritual I am, how spiritual the church
is. Our prayer life, our hunger for the
word, our desire for fellowship or our desire to witness, not that we can all
preach publically but we can all witness.
There is nobody who can’t give out tracts and talk to people. A crowd draws a crowd. “Oh, we only need a few…” No, no, no.
Joshua
7:5:
And the men of Ai struck down about thirty-six of their men, and pursued
them from the gate as far as Shebarim, [in the Hebrew
means “things that are broken”] and struck them down on the descent, so the
hearts of the people melted and became as water.
Know what this is doing, before the
victory at Jericho it said “The hearts of the pagans melted for fear of God and
his people:
Joshua
5:1: Now it came about when all the kings of the
Amorites who were beyond the Jordan
to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard how the LORD had dried up the waters of the
Jordan before the sons of Israel until they had crossed, that their hearts
melted, and there was no spirit in them any longer, because of the sons of
Israel.
“How we heard the Lord had dried up
the waters.” The pagans, the
unbelievers, their hearts used to melt in fear before God’s people, but once
the pride got in, once the sin got in, once the fellowship stopped acting as a
fellowship, part of it trying to carry the ball for all of it, now their heart
melted before their enemies.
You won’t find a Jehovah’s Witness
who does not knock on doors. Now, of
course they are trying to work for their salvation, we are not. Because our salvation is a gift, we take it
for granted; we don’t have to work for our salvation. They are trying to get into heaven; we were
given a ticket, we did not earn it. We
know we cannot earn our salvation, so because they are trying to earn
something; they are going to be more zealous for it. But Christians, true Christians, should be
just as zealous, not to get saved, but because we have been saved. You won’t find Jehovah’s Witness only a
couple of people will go out and proselytize or whatever they call what they
do, but churches, even our own churches, you will find only a couple of people
evangelizing. Now, I am not talking
about legitimate reasons, work, health, children, but if there is a football
game or rugby game that you can record anyway?
That is not a good reason.
And the idea of going down, in verse
5—in Hebrew thought the idea of going up is a good thing, going down is a bad
thing. The Psalms of Ascent, the Jews
for the Pilgrim Feasts had to worship in Jerusalem and they called the Psalms
that they used liturgically, in the Siddur for these
Pilgrim Feasts were called the Psalms of Ascent. No matter what direction you approach
Jerusalem from, you are always going up.
Going up, to immigrate to Israel, when a Jew immigrates to Israel you
say “Aliyah.”
Like El Al, the airlines, going up.
When a Jew leaves Israel it’s varedeth, you go down, your status goes down, so in Hebrew
thought the idea of going up is good, but the idea of going down is bad. Your status goes down and this is echoed in
what is happening spiritually, the fact that they are going down. It does not come across well in the
translation.
Joshua
7:6: Then Joshua tore his clothes and
fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the LORD until the evening,
[Remember, the ark is wood and gold because Jesus is God and man, the shekhinah was in it, was the presence of the Lord among
them, right? The first thing he does is
repentance. He rends his clothes, as it
were.] both he and the elders of Israel; and they
put dust on their heads.
Man, when those Mormons open that
damnable place up the road, and I say damnable in the sense that God has damned
it, that Mormon thing is evil, and it is so crazy, God is a man on another
planet? Have you listened to Copeland? Copeland is now teaching the same thing about
God as the Mormons, it gets worse and worse.
There is not a Bible believing church were the elders should not be
asking “Why has this happened under our nose? Why Lord?” Now, fair enough, some churches, and I am
happy to say this one, did try to do something about it, some people did pray,
some people leafleted, I thank God for the ones who did. But what is the problem here? Yes, I know about Hinn,
I know about Cerullo, I know about Winn Lewis, I know
about the heretics and the liars, but what is wrong with Jacob Prasch. I know about
Elim and the Assemblies of God and the restoration, I
know about that, but what about my church?
Joshua
7:7: And Joshua said, "Alas, O Lord
God, why didst Thou ever bring this people over the Jordan, only to deliver us into the hand of the
Amorites, to destroy us? If only we had been willing to dwell beyond the
Jordan!
O Lord God, we left Bellfield’s
place and we came here to Harris Common, why?
Why did we ever leave where we were, where are we going, what is
happening? What have we come out of? We
should have stayed where we were. What’s
going on here, what’s wrong? Now,
remember, Joshua himself did nothing wrong.
Joshua
7:8:
"O Lord, what can I say since Israel has turned their back before their enemies?
We cannot stop these cults. We cannot stop these Moslems. We cannot stop these New Agers, we cannot
stop it.
Joshua
7:9: "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 wilt Thou do for
Thy great name?"
Lord, we are not so much concerned
for ourselves but what about you? People
are going to see that Mormon monstrosity and think they must be the ones that
are right because they have the biggest place in town. I looked on the internet the other day. Why are women turning to Islam? And it takes all these lies, twisting verses
in the New Testament out of all context trying to make
it seem like Islam gives a higher place to women than Christianity, until I clicked
on the Amnesty International web site where they stripped a woman naked, tied
her down and men flogged her with cane poles.
One woman got 200 lashes because she was falsely accused of having an
affair and then they stripped her naked and beat her with rods, 200 lashes,
they don’t tell you that, of course.
Lord, okay, I don’t care about me
but what about your name?” That is what
Joshua is asking and to be perfectly honest, that is something I am
asking.
Joshua
7:10-12: So the LORD said to Joshua,
"Rise up! Why is it that you have fallen on your face? "Israel has sinned, and they have also
transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. And
they have even taken some of the things under the ban and have both stolen and
deceived. Moreover, they have also put them
among their own things.
"Therefore the sons of Israel cannot stand before their enemies;
they turn their backs before their
enemies, for they have become accursed. I will not be with you anymore unless
you destroy the things under the ban from your midst.
The victory at Jericho was
spectacular. No matter how spectacular
the victory was, what does it matter now?
The Normandy Invasion was spectacular.
Britain stood alone before the Americans came into the war against the
Third Reich, before the Russians and Americans got into it, Britain stood alone
against Hitler and Mussolini and finally they won. What does it matter now, this country is
becoming a colony of Germany, not that I am trying to get political, who is
running Europe. What does it matter
now? It doesn’t matter now, it is
irrelevant. The history is quickly
forgotten, it is no longer important if you don’t live up to it. The victory in Jericho was forgotten, now
it’s the pagan, the Canaanite who has the upper hand. Now let us look at what else happened.
Joshua
7:13-14: "Rise up! [says
the Lord] Consecrate the people and say, 'Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow,
for thus the LORD, the God of Israel, has said, "There are things under
the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you
have removed the things under the ban from your midst." 'In the morning then you shall come near by
your tribes. And it shall be that the tribe which the LORD takes by lot shall come near
by families, and the family which the LORD takes shall come near by households, and the household which the LORD takes
shall come near man by man.
The whole fellowship, tribe by
tribe, family by family, individual by individual.
Joshua
7:15-16: “And it shall be that the one who
is taken with the things under the ban shall be burned with fire, [now this is
an Old Testament metaphor of hell, it eludes to hell, although that is
typological, the person could repent before he was executed] he and all that
belongs to him, because he has transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and
because he has committed a disgraceful thing in Israel.'" So Joshua arose early in the morning and
brought Israel near by the tribes, and the tribe of Judah was taken.
Now stoning was the normal way of execution,
burning was worse, that was saved for special things and the reason was its
typological meaning, it alludes to Hell, it is symbolic of Hell. Things under the ban will put people in Hell
if there is no repentance.
Joshua
7:17-21:
And he brought the family of Judah near, and he took the family of the Zerahites; and he brought the family of the Zerahites near man by man, and Zabdi
was taken. And he brought his household
near man by man; and Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, from the
tribe of Judah, was taken. Then Joshua
said to Achan, "My son, I implore you, give
glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and give praise to Him; and tell me now
what you have done. Do not hide it from me." [The guy had a chance to
repent]. So Achan answered Joshua and said,
"Truly, I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel, and this is
what I did: when I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar [Now
understand what Shinar would have meant.
It is related to the word for ‘tooth’ and if you look in Zechariah and
in Genesis, it is associated with Babylon.
Remember the wicked woman from Zechariah, we have a recording on it, the
wicked woman came from Shinar in Zechariah] two hundred shekels of silver and a
bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I coveted them and took them; and
behold, they are concealed in the earth inside my tent with the silver
underneath it."
Silver has to do with salvation,
doesn’t it? The half shekel for the
firstborn, the price of the Levites, Jesus was betrayed for 30 pieces of
silver. Silver is a corrosive metal, gold is noncorrosive. Silver is only of temporary value, gold is
noncorrosive, it represents things of eternal value in Biblical typology, but
notice what happens. The silver is pushed down; on top of it are unclean
things. While the salvation is there,
the price of the salvation was there but the foreskin was removed, the reproach
of Egypt was taken away, they came through the Jordan and then on top of all
that, things under the ban are buried under the tent.
Joshua
7:22: So Joshua sent messengers, and they
ran to the tent; and behold, it was concealed in his tent with the silver
underneath it.
Oh boy. Things
under the ban, concealed in our tents.
These things can put us in the fire.
You know?