Crossing the Jordan.

There come times in the program of redemption when there is a Divine step forward. Our day is one such time. God is ready now to exercise eternal judgment on His enemies, beginning with His enemies in His Church.

(2/22/2009) It may be true that many Christian teachers, including myself, view the journey of Israel from Egypt to Canaan as being symbolic of our Christian redemption. The New Testament supports this interpretation. We begin as part of the world system, and then are called out to travel to a land of promise, referred to in the Book of Hebrews as the "rest."

With this symbolism in mind, we realize that there will come a time when the Church is ready to cross over the "Jordan" and actually enter Canaan, the land of promise. Two interesting events occurred as Israel was poised in the area east of the Jordan. First, the new generation was circumcised. Second, the manna ceased and the Israelites ate some of the grain and unleavened bread produced at the camp in Gilgal These two occurrences are interesting food for thought for those interested in Bible symbolism.

They had to cross the Jordan River in order to enter their land of promise. The Jordan River symbolizes death to our self-will. We simply cannot enter our land of promise while we are living according to our own plans and desires. We have to die in the Lord that Christ may live in us.

The Book of Hebrews regards Canaan as an illustration of "God’s rest into which we are to press.

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience. (*Hebrews 8:4-11)

Notice carefully: "Anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his." The above passage is using Joshua and the land of Canaan as an illustration of our entering the promised rest. To enter the Kingdom of God we have to be born again. This fact means our first personality does not enter the Kingdom. It is the Life of Christ in us who enters the land of promise.

When the Scripture says, "rests from his own work," it means we cease living according to our own wisdom, desires, and plans, and look carefully to the Lord Jesus for all we think, say, and do. While there have been outstanding saints of old who have entered this rest, the Christian churches as a whole have not been confronted with this challenge. But it is the prime issue of our day, and is absolutely necessary if we are to move past the Pentecostal experience. Now we come to an important question: What does Canaan symbolize? Actually what is our goal, our land of promise, our "rest"?

Traditionally, eternal residence in Heaven is viewed by Christian people as being our goal, the goal of our redemption, our salvation. But this is an error. Canaan was filled with natives who had to be overcome before Israel could find rest in their land of promise. Is Heaven filled with natives who have to be overcome before we can enter? Of course not. Also, the New Testament does not teach that eternal residence in Heaven is the goal of salvation. What, then, is our goal, the goal of our salvation?

Our goal, our inheritance, is the same as that of the Lord Jesus. The second Psalm tells us that Jesus was to pray for the nations and the farthest reaches of the earth. We are co-heirs with Christ. Our inheritance is the nations and the farthest reaches of the earth.

In order to understand what is taking place we must keep in mind that the Canaanites were worshipers of idols. They burned their children in the fires of the idol, Molech.

Israel was bringing into the midst of this playground of demons the holy Law, the Covenant, the Ten Commandments. The Law they were bringing utterly condemned the worship of Molech and the other idols.

Please keep in mind that the purpose of God in giving His Church the nations and the farthest reaches of the earth for their inheritance is that His elect might bring into the midst of today’s playground of demons the Presence of God in Jesus Christ, and His laws of behaviour.

The Lord Jesus Christ was our Moses and soon He will return as our Joshua. When Christ returns to establish His Kingdom on the earth, we cannot work with in accomplishing God’s goal of destroying the presence and work of demons until four changes take place in our personality:

The four changes are as follows:

The presence and works of Satan must be completely removed from us: May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. (I Thessalonians 5:23,24)

We must be changed in characters into the image of the Character of Christ. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:29) We must be filled with all the fullness of God:

And to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, (Ephesians 3:19,20)

We must be living in untroubled rest in the centre of God’s Person and will: Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. (John 6:57)

It seems to me that any thoughtful person would agree that redemption is a change in us, not a change in our location. We must be changed if we are to accomplish God’s purposes, His Kingdom, in the earth.

Before we can participate as we should in the roles and tasks of the Kingdom of God, we must have attained to the four changes just mentioned. Before we can be a co-heir with the Lord Jesus of the nations and the earth we must have attained to these four changes. If one of them has not been attained to, we are neither qualified (by the Word) nor competent in personality to serve God as a co-heir of the Lord Jesus Christ.

At this point I will leave the last three goals and focus on the first change, that is, the presence and works of Satan completely removed from us.

Perhaps we have not understood clearly that the work of redemption occurs in two phases. The first phase is the forgiveness of our sins. The second phase, based on the first, is the removal of our sins. Both the forgiveness and removal are acts of redemption, that is, of reconciliation to God.

There is a doctrine of eternal judgment. It may be new to many of us.

Instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. (Hebrews 6:2)

The doctrine of eternal judgment has to do with the eternal removal of all spiritual uncleanness from God’s people, and finally from the entire creation. The Lord Jesus referred to a "day" in which God would avenge Himself on His enemies.

To proclaim the year of the LORD's favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, (Isaiah 61:2)

Also:

As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. (Matthew 13:40,43)

I suppose the best news we ever could hear as Christians is that God has set out not only to forgive our sins but to remove all of the presence and works of Satan from us.

Notice that it is clear from the passages (above) that the removal of sin will take place at a specific time. For example, "at the end of the age."

We are happy to announce that we have come today to the beginning of the Day of Vengeance of our God. This work of redemption will continue, according to our understanding, until the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age. It is The Day of the Lord, the sixth day of creation, the day when man is to be made in God’s image.

In order for us to enter the "rest of God," our land of promise, our Canaan, we must, through the wisdom, authority, and power of Christ working through the Spirit of God, overcome each enemy we encounter. Remember, to cross the Jordan River we must be living in Christ, not in our adamic nature. We must "die in the Lord," as the Book of Revelation exhorts us.

Our enemies are found in three main areas in our life:

In our love of the world.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. (I John 2:15-17) In our sinful nature.

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. (Galatians 5:16-18) In our self-will and self-seeking.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1,2)

Perhaps many Christians deplore the worldliness, the lusts and passions of their flesh, and their self-love that characterize their personality. The good news is that today, God is ready to give us total victory over these enemies in our land of promise.

God will give us perfect victory over our love of the world as we keep looking to Christ for help and resolutely give time each day to prayer and Bible reading. Jesus wants us to learn to listen to Him and obey Him in every part of our life. Doing so is the best preparation there is for the Divine wrath that soon is to be poured out on the United States of America because of abortion-on-demand.

God is ready to enable us to drive out every sin that dwells in our flesh, whether it is of the nature of sexual immorality, hatred, lying, sorcery, pride, or whatever else it may be. When the Spirit of God points out to us one of the sins set forth in Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, and other passages of the New Testament, we are to confess our action as sin; denounce it as worthy only of the Lake of Fire, and with all our strength renounce and reject it. We may find to our delight that power is present today that may not have been available previously.

Today is God’s time to judge the evil in His people.

As far as being delivered from self-will, if we will take up our cross and follow the Lord Jesus, God will see to it that Satan will throw us into one or more prisons. There we must remain, in our miserable state, until God sets us free. It is in these prisons of unpleasant circumstances that the self-will is burned out of us.

While we are in such a prison we are to pray continually that God will deliver us, but never break out, because we will have to break God’s laws in order to do so.

Since we Christians in America are so spiritually weak, sinful, worldly, in love with our pleasures, it is somewhat doubtful that many will be able to cross over the Jordan at this time, although some may, do to the sufferings of the future.

However, this same program of redemption is at work in the spirit world among the deceased saints, as we read in the fourth chapter of the Book of First Peter. It may be true that multitudes of them have the spiritual strength necessary to enter the land of promise God has promised us.

No matter how spiritually weak we are in America, any one of us can choose to turn to Christ and seek the ability to escape the cloying hands of our fleshly "Christianity" and be among those soldiers who lay aside their own lives and live at all times in Christ. The Spirit of God will enable such to drive out the darkness and lies that fill the world at this time and find their inheritance in the Lord.