Preparation for War

The Book of Joshua teaches us many aspects of warfare.

And Joshua said to the people, Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the Lord will do wonders among you. (Joshua 3:5)

The Word and the Spirit are telling us that God will do great things. It is an hour of preparation.

Sanctify yourselves! Sanctify yourselves! Sanctify yourselves!

There come times in the history of the Kingdom of God when God is ready for a major step forward. In order to be prepared for God’s move we must sanctify ourselves. We must set ourselves apart as holy to God’s Person, purpose, and ways.

We must address ourselves with renewed determination to serving the Lord. We must repent, putting out of our lives all that is not holy. The things we are doing that are merely good must give place to that which represents our most sincere efforts and dedication.

Today is one such time. God is ready to perform wonders in the heavens and on the earth. The Spirit of God is exhorting us and warning us to turn to the Lord with the greatest diligence of which we are capable.

All sin must be put away. We must forsake all competing and distracting interests, ambitions, plans, and desires, take up our cross, and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

If we prepare ourselves we will be ready for the worldwide harvesting of souls that is at hand. If we do not prepare ourselves we will fall into the snares of the devil, because tribulation and temptation are at hand.

We must watch and pray, watch and pray, watch and pray so we may be able to stand in the Presence of the Son of Man. To be able to stand spiritually throughout the shaking that is coming on both the spiritual and material realms will require total consecration to Christ. Jesus will provide us with the wisdom and strength to go from victory to victory throughout earth’s darkest hour.

When gross darkness covers the peoples of the earth, the light of God’s Spirit will arise on the saints.

And Joshua spake 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. (Joshua 3:6)

God is speaking to His leaders and teachers today. We are to set an example to the Lord’s saints. What we preach we are required to practice. We cannot expect the people to stop sinning and take up their cross until we stop sinning and take up our cross.

It is the responsibility of God’s preachers to "pass over before the people." There is to be no more moneymaking, no more seeking our own advantage and gain from the Gospel of the Kingdom. We are to lay down our lives so the resurrection life of Christ may enter those who hear us.

The Ark of the Covenant represents the Presence and will of God, the testimony of His holiness and righteousness in Christ.

And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. (Joshua 3:7)

God has richly anointed and blessed the ministries of the Christian Church as they have labored throughout the centuries. Multitudes of people have made their peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. There have been a few individuals who have pressed past the rudiments of salvation and have found their joy in the Spirit of God. They have come into a fuller relationship to Christ than has been true of the majority of believers.

In addition, the Christian Gospel has inspired social reform and works of mercy in many areas of human life, such as the improvement of the educational opportunities of children, nursing care, abolition of slavery, prison reform, and providing for the poor. In numerous instances Christian people can be found at the heart of benevolent, humane enterprises.

God indeed has magnified the spiritual and social works of those who have labored in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ours is a new day. The Kingdom of God is at hand. What was envisioned by the Prophets of Israel is soon to come to pass in the earth.

We are witnesses of what happens when mankind trusts in its education and achievements apart from the Lord God. Wars, famines, rape, perversion, murder, hatred, and every other abomination fill the earth. The harder man works apart from God to achieve peace and abundance the more he is denied peace and abundance. Meanwhile the humble of the earth who trust in the Lord find peace and the supplying of their needs.

The abomination that produces desolation is here already. The trinity of man is 666—man attempting to make himself God.

Whenever man makes himself a god, such as in the religion of Humanism, the inevitable result is desolation—spiritual, moral, financial, intellectual, artistic impoverishment.

We of the "civilized" nations are approaching the midnight hour. The wheat and the tares are growing toward maturity. Christ and Antichrist are heading toward the ultimate confrontation.

God will provide in the near future a power to bear witness that will make the true believers more than conquerors in Jesus’ name. The fullness of the witness is portrayed in symbolic form by the two witnesses of Revelation, Chapter 11. Christ will bear witness through and with His saints, warning both His Church and the world of the nearness of His Presence. The Day of Wrath is just around the corner. The world is to repent of its wicked practices and believe in the Good News of the soon coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth.

The end of the present age is near. All the works of men will be exposed for the pitiful groping and gleaning which indeed they are.

The Lord God of Heaven is displaying before the creatures of the heavens and the earth the folly of existence apart from His glorious Presence and blessing.

Jesus is coming soon. In preparation for His coming the Lord is issuing to His elect wisdom and power without precedent in the history of mankind. "Greater works than these shall ye do".

We have witnessed the blessing of God on the Christian enterprises of the past and present. Now "Moses is dead." God is speaking to "Joshua." The Lord is enlarging the dimension of militancy, of spiritual warfare, that is part of the Body of Christ, the Wife of the Lamb.

The spiritual control of the world will not be yielded by Satan and his followers without a fierce, vicious struggle. The armies of Satan consider the earth and its peoples to be their inheritance, not the inheritance of Christ and His saints.

We now are in the Levitical Blowing of Trumpets, to speak in terms of a scriptural type (Leviticus 23:24). It is the time of spiritual warfare. The Jubilee is near, the hour of release from the tyrant who has held the peoples of the earth in spiritual chains and slavery (Leviticus, Chapter 25). Satan and every one of his followers are to be driven from the presence of the peoples of the earth.

The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. (Psalms 24:1)

What right do Satan and his angels have to keep on destroying the inhabitants of the earth, to keep on bringing the curse of God on the inheritance of the Lord Jesus Christ?

We Christians are being trained to fight in the conflict of the ages. We were called by the Lord Jesus. We have been chosen because we responded wholeheartedly to the call. Now we are being proven faithful as we serve the Lord in difficult and vexing circumstances that are testing our patience.

The war has commenced already. Are you standing against the enemy in your assigned place?

The ultimate confrontation will be the Battle of Armageddon. This is the invasion in which Christ attacks Antichrist and destroys him out of the earth.

Today the Lord Jesus, in anticipation of Armageddon, is beginning to confront His people with the realities of spiritual warfare. Every day we are presented with a new challenge, a new lesson to learn. Has this been true in your life?

This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel.

We can see that the God of Heaven is "magnifying" this new dimension of Christ. Christ is becoming to us the Lord of Armies. We are beginning to perceive the enormous authority and power of the galactic Christ—authority and power that control the heavens, the earth, and the spiritual prisons in the interior of the earth.

We have not passed this way before. Change is upon us. The Kingdom of God is at hand. The authority and power to crush Satan under our feet, which have been designated as belonging to us by the Lord Jesus, were gained on the cross of Calvary and will be completely, perfectly demonstrated throughout the universe as the Kingdom of God is exercised in the victorious saints, in the Church, and finally in every creature in the heavens and on the earth.

The conflict of the ages in all its fury is upon us. The cross of Christ is leading the way. The soldiers of the cross are standing up for Jesus.

Will you stand in your place "round about the camp"?

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