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It's me today. I am Ramana, so let's make our
usual proclamation. The Kingdom of God is within me.
Amen. Amen.
Yeah, I'm just going to pray because by the Lord's grace, I
won't weep and cry my way through the next 30 minutes.
But let's just close it, bow our eyes and yeah, Lord, we just
come before you. We ask that as we open your word
this morning. God, I pray that you would make
our hearts receptive to what you have to say to us.
Lord, make us sensitive to your word.
Let the word that's been sown go deep into our hearts, that it
bear fruit, much fruit for the glory of your name.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen, Amen.
All right, so today I want to read from Joshua Chapter 7.
But before I get there, I'm just going to do a bit of context, a
bit of myth busting, if you will, and then we'll dive into
the word. And so it kind of prepares our
heart for the letters to say, I'm speaking today because we
obviously had a really great camp focusing on on the gifts of
the Holy Spirit, healing, things like that.
We all prayed for each other on Saturday night.
And now we're going to be moving into an another four week series
on healings and deliverances. And so I wanted to take the
opportunity to share my testimony about what God has
been doing in my life for these last six months, because it kind
of all ties in nicely and and to kind of whit your appetite for
what's going to come, what God wants to do among us and for
each and everyone of us. I believe the calling of God for
this church is a big part of that calling is deliverance,
deliverance ministry. And so before we begin, what do
I mean when I say deliverance? It's quite a buzzword people
throw at deliverance ministries all around the place.
But for at its most simple definition, deliverance is just
all the things that have clinged on to us since before we were,
before we came to the Lord are kind of tying us down, holding
us back, slowing us down. It's cutting those things off
us, Right. A really simple analogy, I
guess, if you will, is when Jesus raised Lazarus from the
dead, he was an alive he, the man was alive.
Did he have any business being wrapped in those grave clothes?
No, people that are alive have no business being wrapped in
grave clothes, Right? And so that's all Deliverance
is, is taking those things off from when we were dead and now
we're alive. We just have to disconnect those
things from our lives. And so that's the simple
definition. And why it's so important is
because we have a really high calling on our lives as
believers. The Great Commission, the Lord
commands us that we had to go out to heal the sick, to raise
the debt, to cast out demons, to preach the good news of the
gospel. Those are the foundations of
what we're called to do as a believers.
And we can't do that unless we are 100% yielded to the power of
the Holy Spirit in our lives, right?
And so deliverance is a process that allows us to yield
ourselves completely, to lay ourselves down fully before the
Lord. And so before I start, I just
want to deal with a couple of misconceptions that I had about
deliverance before I went through it and other people
might have. And the first being Christians
can't be in bondage or, or or under the influence of demons or
another way this is put is I'm saved.
Am I not already free? Why do I need to?
Why do I need deliverance? Because I'm already saved.
Like that's a valid question. And so I just want to draw a
couple of principles from the Bible.
The first being Luke 22, three, the example of Judas, right?
The Bible says then Satan entered Judas.
Now Judas was in the inner circle.
He was among the 12. Did he cast out demons?
Yes. Did he heal the sick?
Yes. Was he a follower of Jesus
Christ? But still Satan into Judas?
We're all susceptible in our lives to the influence of the
enemy unless we're really careful, right?
So that is example number one that, yeah, Christians,
believers can be in bondage or under the influence of the
enemy. Then we go down to Matthew 1623.
But you're like, Oh yeah, yeah, Judas, he betrayed Jesus.
He doesn't really count, right? OK, let's look at Peter, Matthew
1623. But Jesus turned and said to
Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me.
And this is again, a really good example of how the devil is
influencing the thought life of a really strong believer that
this is Peter. I'm going to build my church up
on this rock, right? This is the one of the
disciples. And again, you see, he's he's
easily under the influence of the enemy.
And lastly, Simon the sorcerer. This is a really interesting
example that I came across while reading a while ago because it
says in Acts chapter 8 verse 13, Simon himself believed and was
baptized and he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the
great signs and miracles that he saw.
So here's a believer who believed the good news.
He was baptized and he was following one of his disciples
and was amazed. But yet you see that he's later
on in that passage, he tries to buy the gift of the Holy Spirit
and Peter rebukes him and says, you, I think I kind of remember
the words X 18. We can go to X chapter 18.
Let's do that and then I can give you the exact words what
Peter says. 8 Acts chapter 8 verse 13 Simon the sorcerer in
verse 18, when Simon saw the Spirit was given at the laying
on of the apostles hands, he offered them money and said,
give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my
hands may receive the Holy Spirit.
Peter answered, May your Bunny perish with you because you
thought you could buy the gift of God with money.
You have no part or share in this ministry because your heart
is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and
pray to the Lord. Perhaps He will forgive you for
having such a thought in your heart.
For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.
This is a really key phrase, captive to sin.
There are things in our lives that we're captive.
We may be captive to addiction. Thought patterns are just
irrational things. But these are all signs of the
influence of the enemy. And there's someone who was
baptized and believed and was still captive to these things.
But this passage is also interesting.
Notice how Peter doesn't cast the demon out of him.
What does he do? Ask him to repent, right?
That heart of repentance and true repentance before God is, I
think, one of the key things to deliver.
It's not saying that casting out demons is not bad, but I'm
saying it doesn't always have to.
That's not the only thing. There's a whole bunch of other
stuff that involves true deliverance and true repentance.
I think is is really important. And the other things being that
if believers can't be influenced by the demonic, then Paul has no
right to tell us to take thought, to take every thought
captive him to be obedient into the obedience of Christ, to put
on the full armor of God. Why do we need to do all these
things? Because we live in a world
that's both natural and spiritual.
Spiritual attacks are always going to come at us.
And so we need to be vigilant, right?
And one last thing about if I'm already a Christian and how can
I be under the influence of the demonic is this analogy that I
think dad is, is is spoke about before of this house, right?
If you, when you buy a house, all of its problems don't
magically disappear because the ownership changed, right?
The, the, if you've got ants and termites in the roof, they're
still going to be there. The tap's still going to be
leaking. You have to fix those things.
Just because ownership changes doesn't necessarily mean all the
problems go away. There are definitely 100% times
when God radically saved someone and all of that stuff just boom
goes. But again, we have a part to
play cool. And the other thing, the other
kind of thing I want to tackle is that I've already been
through deliverance. I don't need to do it again.
Sanctification is an ongoing process.
Justification is a one time thing, right?
You've been justified by Christ. He's died for you and He's
forgiven you your sins. But holiness is ongoing you.
We are in a pursuit of becoming more holy, just as He is holy,
day after day after day. And so just because you did
something once doesn't mean you don't need to do it again,
right? Is there?
Do I have examples? Oh yeah, cool.
Matthew 1243 to 45. When an impure spirit comes out
of a person that goes through arid places seeking rest, then
it says I will return to the house, then the house.
And then when the spirit comes back, the final condition of
that person is worse than the first.
So this verse tells us two things.
One, deliverance is real demons do torment people and they can
leave. But also they can come back,
right? Matthew 1623 But Jesus turned
and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan, you are something off
to me. Oh, sorry, I forgot to take
those two things. I was doing this at like right?
Don't remember the last two bullet points.
They're the same as the others. Deliverance is real, but freedom
must be guided and maintained. The same fervor with which you
fight for your deliverance must be the same fervor with which
you live and maintain your freedom, right?
OK. So I think we've done a pretty
good job looking at the Bible to say deliverance is a real thing.
It's scripturally sound, and we all may need it, I think, and at
some point in our lives. And so before I go into the
passage Joshua Chapter 7, I kind of want, I want to share with
you my testimony because I have gone through this in the last at
the start of the year in February, I had to go through
deliverance not by choice, but by necessity.
So I've spoken on Joshua 7 before, if some of you may
remember from the atrium. So this is a couple years ago.
So in 2023, I, I look, I look back through the podcast and God
had spoken to me about Joshua Chapter 7 because I had doubts
about deliverance. In my mind, my parents are
probably the best people in the country to go to deliverance,
but I had doubts and I would be with them praying.
And I was like, oh, I don't know, I don't see it in the
Bible. I don't know.
But God spoke to me out of Joshua 7 and it satisfied my
things. But as as every good believer or
as every good person, I proceeded to preach a sermon on
it before I applied it to my own life.
And so I neglected to apply it to my life for two years.
And so Fast forward now to to February 2025, at the start of
this year. I've been dealing with a little
bit of back pain since maybe the last 10 years.
Oops. I've been dealing with back pain
for the last maybe 10 years, since 2015, on and off, really
bad. I kind of just live with it.
It's whatever I was. Oh yeah, it's a little bit of
pain. I'll get over it.
It comes and it goes. And so it was starting to get
really bad at the start of the year.
And so I was like, ah, it's fine.
Didn't think anything of it. I didn't think it was spiritual
because it's just back pain. I mean, people have back pain.
So one Sunday afternoon after church, I lay down for a nap.
And then when I got up, I, I couldn't get up.
Like it was, it had just gripped me so bad.
I managed to get up, but then I fell because I couldn't stand in
the pain. There was no position in my body
that was not sending excruciating pain down my leg
and my spine. Like it was just like it was on
fire. I I have a pretty good pain
threshold. Like I said, I've lived with
this for 10 years without much complaint, but this was insane.
I was on the floor just shaking in pain for about an hour and
then obviously I was like, I need to call mom and dad like
what's going on? They came and then the condition
that I was in, they were like, this is spiritual.
It's not, it's no longer physical, right?
And so I was like, OK, let's I need to go through deliverance.
And so we started this process of uncovering what were the
things that I'd opened doors to in my life since a very young
age, like stuff that I from from a very young age.
And it's not big things. I mean, I was, at that point a
believer for many decades, a couple of like since I was a
kid, right? Like, I've been baptized in the
Holy Spirit. I've cast out demons.
I've seen people being healed when I pray for them.
I lead worship. I'm the son of a pastor.
All of those things were there and I was like, how can I be in
bondage, right? And so that's why I put off
deliverance for so long. I'm a pretty good Christian.
There's nothing terribly wrong with me.
And then this happened and I had to go through it.
And the Lord really brought me to that place of genuine
repentance. Little stuff that I'd done like
years and years ago, I would just weep and say, God, I'm
sorry. Like I've, I've hurt your heart,
you know? So I went to the physio and they
did an MRI and they found two prolapsed discs in my spine.
And that kind of pain is pretty like one of the worst pains you
can feel. And so he'd booked me in for ACT
guided injection, like a steroid injection into my spine to kind
of just help deal with the pain because they're like, there's
nothing you can do unless you want to do surgery, but that's
what we're going to do. And so at the same time I was
going through Deliverance, I was on four different kind of like a
really high doses of pain medication and none of those
even helped. At night, I couldn't sleep.
I'd be biting my pillow just to roll from my back to my side so
I wouldn't wake Hailey. Like the amount of pain was just
excruciating. So all of this is happening.
I was on super high painkillers. Nothing is helping going through
Deliverance. And when I went through
Deliverance, within three days I was completely off all
painkillers. And I went back to the guy and I
was like, I, I don't think I need the painkillers.
And he's like, whoa, what about the injections?
I don't think so. He's like, let's not do it if
you don't need it. And I was like, OK, great.
And so, yeah, that was a really stark contrast of the just sheer
pain versus and then and then coming out of it, it took a
while to fully recover. Like that recovery spanned a
couple of months. And then as some of you may
know, right before camp, I had another attack of the enemy.
And every hour I had to lie down just to kind of give it rest
this weekend. And I was preparing the sermon
on Wednesday. And I was like, Lord, how am I
going to stand in front of these people and talk about this if
I'm still like this? And again, we went through some
we cast out some more stuff the last couple of days.
And I can genuinely tell you, like I woke up without any pain
this morning, like nothing like it's, you know, it's all God,
it's. And that kind of again speaks to
this test. The testament of you go through
deliverance once. But I'm going to be honest with
you, I was really slack once I got healed, I was like, cool,
I'm going to coast. I'm good now and then, you know,
like back then when I was in pain going through this, I would
be worshipping, praying, reading my Bible in the morning,
afternoon, night, constantly in the Word, constantly in his
presence. It was awesome.
But then it's, I think it's human nature that when something
kind of eases off, you're like, oh, OK, I can just chill out.
It's all right. I can take it easy now.
Like I'm good. And so I did that, shamefully.
I kind of took it, took my things out.
I was like, oh, you know, my reading the word got less and
less and less. And then you expose yourself to
the attack of the enemy when you take your foot off the pedal.
And so that's one of the, the key point I want to make is that
the the fervor with which you fight for your deliverance needs
to be the same amount of intensity with which you hold
it. We can't afford to take our foot
off the gas pedal because the devil is prowling.
He's waiting for a chance to get a foothold in our lives.
And we can't give him that chance, not when the call of God
for each and everyone of us is so high.
Right, so OK, let's dive into the word Joshua Chapter 7.
The blueprint for deliverance is is is is found in Joshua Chapter
7. Yeah, so I just got it here.
17th September 2023. God spoke to me about
deliverance and I have it recorded on a permanent record
on the Internet saying I called dad and said I want to book a
deliverance session in ASAP. And that didn't happen for two
years. And I think that's, that's the
enemy's voice saying you don't need to do it.
You're pretty good, you're fine. It's not that urgent.
You can do it another time. But let me give you a word of
advice. Do it before you need to do it.
It's always going to be better to do it before you have the
need. When before the enemy's got a
knife up against you. Don't, don't let it get that
bad. Just do it.
Just Nike, just do it. Don't be forced to do it.
Cool. So Joshua Chapter 7, it's this
passage about Akin. The right Israelites are
fighting AI and they lose the battle because this one man Akin
had taken, had disobeyed God and taken some of the plunder from
Jericho. And so some of I just really
quickly want to touch on some of the context for Joshua Chapter
7. And it's found in Joshua chapter
one, verse 2 to 5. It says Moses, my servant, this
is godspeaking. Moses, my servant is dead.
Now then you and all these people get ready to cross the
Jordan River into the land I'm about to give you to the
Israelites. I will give you every place
where you set your foot. As I promised Moses, your
territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon and from the
great river, the Euphrates, all the Hittite country to the great
sea on the West. And this is the key verse.
No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your
life. As I was with Moses, so I will
be with you. I will never leave you nor
forsake you, right? What a great promise, Amen.
Like this is the Lord. If if God woke you up in the
middle of the night appeared to you and said no one will be able
to stand against you all the days of your life as I was with
Moses, so I'll be with you. I will never leave you.
What like this is our promise as well.
This is the Lord's promise to us.
But imagine if God woke you up and said these things to you,
right. You're you're on cloud 9.
Nothing is going to beat me devil not I'll be strutting my
stuff up and down. You know I'm easy.
And so that's the context of what the Lord had spoken to
Joshua. These are the things that he was
carrying, the promises of the Lord he was carrying.
And so they crossed the Jordan, They come to Jericho.
And Jericho is one of the largest cities in, in, in the
country. It's the population, I think I
don't have it here, but it's one of the largest cities in the
promised land. And we all know the story,
right? They send spies and to kind of
scope it out. Then they come, and Joshua
fought the Battle of Jericho, and the walls came crumbling
down. And they destroy it.
But one of the key things God said in that battle was when he,
when they destroyed it, God gave them a command that all the
gold, silver and articles or bronze and iron are to be taken
to the treasury of the Lord's house.
The people weren't to take any of that stuff.
It was meant to go to the Lord's house.
And obviously they weren't to kill anyone in Rahab's house
because of what she'd helped the people with.
And so when they did this Aiken, which then brings us to verse
one. But the Israelites acted
unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things Akin son of Kami,
the son of Zemri, the son of 0. The tribe of Judah took some of
them. So the Lord's anger burned
against Israel. So what did he take the he took.
We find the answer in verse 21. A beautiful robe from Babylonia
and some gold and some silver. And he hid it in his tent as I
was preparing last night. I want a tangent a little bit,
but I think it's important because the Lord really
convicted me of this. And I think it's really
important for us as a church to come to a West.
So I just wanted to decide tangent a little bit and focus
on this rope from Babylonia. Contrast this with the life of
Daniel. OK, he, Daniel, was rooted,
planted in Babylon in the King's temple.
He could eat whatever he wanted. He could wear whatever he
wanted, drink whatever he wanted inside Babylon.
But yet he made a statement. I will not defile myself.
He made a priority of holiness in the culture that wasn't holy.
He chose not to defile himself with the things of Babylon.
Here you have Akin not in Babylon, in the protection and
in the camp of the Israelites. Yet he didn't make that
distinction of not defiling himself with the things of
Babylon, right? It's two really contrasting
things and it highlights our need for holiness.
We need to be like Daniel, not akin.
Even if, though, even though we're in an environment, even
though we're, we associate with people that are from Babylon,
off Babylon, we must, we have to be like Daniel and say, I will
choose not to defile myself. I choose to be holy because
holiness is really, really important.
He yeah, Daniel decided to stay pure and not be defined by it.
And because of that, he would he shine for God.
In contrast to Akin, who is not in Babylon, not in the
environment of oppression, yet covers the things that are from
Babylon and brings death and destructions.
Christians are losing the battles, their battles in life
because they desire the things of Babylon.
And it's not big things. It's very like minute little
things. We need to be so careful about
the things that defile us, the things that we read, the things
that we love, the things that we put our hands to, the things
that we watch, the things that we see, the things that we hear,
right. I remember years ago now when
I'd made the conscious decision to stop listening to secular
music because I don't want to defile myself of all the
connotations, the words, the themes that come out of of the
world. And I made that choice.
And now Fast forward another 10-15 years, we have social
media now we have Facebook, we have Instagram, we have YouTube.
And the Lord convicted me last night.
He's like, you made such a strong stance about music, but
what's your stance about social media?
Because people swear on there. Like, I got sent something
really vulgar by someone a couple of days ago and I didn't
think much of it until last night again.
And the Lord brought it to my attention.
And I was like, hang on, why am I opening myself up to all these
other things when I've made a conscious decision not to want
to be defiled, right. It's things we watch like Haley
and I make a really strong effort before we watch any movie
as to IMDb it and check is there any nudity?
Is there any? Is there any sexual stuff?
Because if there is not, it's off the table.
And it, it astounds me how often Christians are they talking
about these movies that they go and see.
And I'm like, why? Why are you defiling yourself
with the things of Babylon, right?
We need to make a stand of purity in a generation that's
going to complete opposite way. That's the first step to staying
free. Same thing with social media.
So much junk. I've deleted it now, but so much
junk that just you're scrolling through.
You're they say it's engineered like a slot machine to keep your
dictates. You're pulling down, but not
only that, you're pulling down on your innocence, right.
You don't know what's going to pop up the next time you flick
something. You don't know if you're going
to watch someone die, if you're going to see someone say
something vulgar. You have no idea.
You're just flicking it. It.
It completely baffles my mind and and, and my plea to this
generation, you young people, is God what God has given you.
Guard your eyes, guard your ears.
It's not worth opening yourself up to the enemy.
It's not worth the divorcing yourself from God.
It's just not worth it. So that's my side tangent.
Where was it? The robe of Babylon here, verse
1. So he covered it some things and
he took them. What he took was the robe of bet
from Babylon, some gold, some silver.
Verse 2 Now Joshua sends some men from Jericho to AI, which is
near Beth Avon to the east of Bethel Bethel and told them go
up and spy out the region, right?
It worked for them the first time.
Send some spies in, see what we'd need to do and let's go and
do it. Now when they returned to Joshua
verse three, they said not all the people have to go up against
AI, sent 2 or 3000 men to take it and don't weary all the
people for only a few men are there.
So about 3000 men went up. So they have defeated the
biggest city in the land and now it's AI which is much smaller.
The population of AI is about 12,000 people.
The Israelites had 600,000 fighting men at that point.
And so by the time you'd taken women and children, they were in
the millions, right? And so the spies go and they say
it's a small town, we don't need to take all 600,000 people, take
3000. And so they send up 3000 and
then verse 4. But they sent and 3000 men up,
but they were routed, routed, routed by the men of AI.
Some translations say they were soundly defeated by the men of
AI. They chased the yeah, who killed
about 36 of them. They chased the Israelites from
the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them
down on the slopes. So the recommendation to send
2000 or 3000 people could have either been from faith.
We've just taken down Jericho without raising a single, you
know, like we just walked around it.
So God is with us. Let's just send 3000.
Or it could have been self-reliance.
Just in the physical. It's 12,000 people.
Let's just send 3000, finish the job, right?
Whether it was faith or self-reliance, most likely I'm
going to say self-reliance, which is again, something that
we all kind of tap into. Like, I can handle it.
This isn't a big deal. This temptation isn't that big.
I can handle it. Like this is not right.
But who knows that even if they had sent 600,000 men, they would
have still lost the battle, right?
Why? Because they disobeyed God.
There was those things that buried under the tent of Akin.
You could send as many men as you want, but if you're not
obedient to God, if you've opened yourself up to the attack
of the enemy, you will always stay defeated.
That's that's the principle. The whole group.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Coming to that next, because the
Lord says in verse, so Joshua Taurus clothes fell down.
The Lord said Israel is sin. He didn't say Aiken is sin.
The whole nation was brought down because of this one man.
And in our lives, sometimes it's not just the stuff we do, not
just the stuff we hide or the sin that we're in.
It could be the sin of someone in the family generations up
that still had us has a stronghold over us, right.
And so deliverance is a process that deals with those things is
so Israel could not be defeated by the Canaanites.
It was impossible. God had said I'm going to be
with you. No one will be able to stand
against you. That was God's promise.
Alienating themselves from God's power is what brought defeat.
And so no one could defeat Israel, but Israel could defeat
itself, right. The enemy has no power to defeat
you in your life. It has no power to stop what God
has spoken over each and every one of us.
But we have the power to defeat ourselves when we align
ourselves to the lie of the enemy.
And that's another thing that we need to be really aware of.
What are the lies that I'm believing?
What? Yeah.
Can't do anything. Yeah.
So that would have made no difference how many people they
would have sent up. But one thing was really certain
to me as I was reading the passage, that they were
completely oblivious to the lack of the presence of the Lord.
And as I was reading that, I was like, man, they had no idea the
difference between Jericho and AI.
They just thought it was the same.
There was no awareness of God's hand, his mercy's presence going
before them. And it kind of reminded me of
the story of Samson, right? You have this mighty man of God
and he, he goes through, he's dabbling in sin and the first
time with Delilah, he gets up and beats all the people, it's
fine. Second time beats all the people
that are just bounding him up, it's fine.
Third time, it doesn't happen that way, right?
And he was completely unaware that the Spirit of God had
lifted him. And so it highlights, I guess,
the need for us to live. If we are to live a clean and
pure life before the Lord, we need to have a sensitivity to
His presence. We need to have a sensitivity to
his Spirit. And that can only be achieved in
the secret place because we can't afford to go into battle
not knowing if the presence of God is departed from us.
Like that's not an option, especially especially in these
end times. Like the Lord is coming back
soon. We are part of that end time
army. We can't afford to live a life
void of the knowledge of his presence, right?
We have to cherish his presence so that we know when he's with
us. We know when we've wronged him
so that we can come back and repent quickly.
Keep a short record with the Lord.
Yeah. Don't be like Samson.
So verse 4, they were soundly defeated that were they're
routed by the men of Israel, by the men of AI.
Another thing I found really interesting reading this was
that only 36 people died out of 3000.
Is that a sound defeat? I would say that's a pretty
good. I'd say that's borderline
victory. Like I mean that those kind of
victory stats like I'd expect to win a battle and lose 36 people
out of 3000. That's 1.2%.
That's not a huge deal. But then you look at the
reaction verse 6. Joshua tore his clothes, fell
face down to the ground before the ark of the Lord, remaining
there till evening. The elders of the Israelites did
the same and sprinkled dust on their heads.
This was a massive deal for them. 36 people dying was a huge
issue, right? So, and the principle that comes
out of that is that sometimes we look at things in the natural,
we're like, that's not a big deal.
It's only a little thing. It's not affecting me in any way
whatsoever. It's insignificant to my life in
the spiritual. It's a massive defeat.
It's opening you up to a massive defeat, right?
Does that make sense? Am I?
Yeah.
Like so much stuff in our lives that we were like, it's not a
big deal. It's only, it's only social
media. It's only this, It's only this.
I'm only I I don't even do it that much.
You know, it's not, it's not that big a deal.
But actually, no matter how insignificant it is to you in
the spiritual realm, it's actually a really big deal.
The Bible calls it a sound defeat.
The enemy has soundly defeated us and we're not even aware of
it most of the time. Yep, verse 5 city gates.
At this, the hearts of the people melted and became like
water. So Israel, the hearts of the
Israelites melted and became like water.
Do you know what's interesting is that that's the exact same
phrase used earlier in Joshua to describe the state of the people
of Jericho and the land when the spies go to Raheb's house, she
says. The fall of verse 3, chapter 2
verse 8 Before the spies lay down for the night, she Rahab
went up to the roof and said to them, I know that the Lord has
given this land to you, and that a great fear of you has fallen
on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear
because of you. When we void, when we separate
ourselves from the plan of God by these hidden things in our
lives, what was meant for your enemies takes a hold of itself
on you. Being melted with fear is a is a
job of the enemy to do. It's not yours to do.
But when we divorce ourselves from God, we take on what we
weren't meant to take on in the 1st place.
We weren't meant to take on a spirit of fear.
You know, like we've been saying, so Matthias, recently
the Lord has not given you a spirit of fear, but of love and
compare power and a sound mind. Exactly right.
We take on things that we weren't created to take on.
And that's one of the the the key things of deliverance is
that you're you're you've taken on things in your life that you
were never created to do. And that's one of the reasons
you're not seeing breakthrough. So they go on to seek the Lord
and they're really upset. Verse 11 is what Owen had said.
So the ark of the Lord carry on. Nope, that's not wrestling, but
it's Israel. It's sin.
It's not Aiken sin, but the nation.
It's sin. And this is that analogy of the
little yeast, right? That spreads through the doe.
You just need one person to sin. And so the Lord's command is to
deal with sin severely, quickly and strictly.
We can't afford to tolerate it in our lives.
You have to cut it off as soon as it comes because the danger
is it'll spread through the camp.
It'll spread through the church and so you see it all throughout
Scripture steal with sin quickly.
Don't let it linger. And so now the crux of the verse
crux of this passage is verse 12.
Joshua got up early the next morning.
Yep, let's read it. Joshua got up early the next
morning and the priest took the act of the Lord.
The seven priests comes, went forward marching.
Sorry, I'm on the wrong chapter. I was like, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry. Yeah, yeah.
Israel has sinned. They've violated my covenant,
which I commanded to keep them to keep.
They've taken some of the devoted things they have stolen.
They have lied. They've put them in their own
positions. That is why the Israelites
cannot stand against their enemies.
They turn their backs and run because they have been made
liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore
unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to
destruction. But that verse 12, This is why
Christians cannot stand against demonic powers.
Why sin? Yep, things buried in our tents,
buried in the tents of our forefathers, clear as day.
The importance of deliverance. Why are you not seeing victory
in your life? Why are you being why are we not
able to reach the we know we're singing this morning, God, we
want to see revival. We want to see revival.
It's really good and and that's a heart's cry, but it starts
with holiness, starts by not tolerating even the smallest
amount of sin. That's why we're powerless.
Holiness is going to be the start of revival.
So he says go consecrate the people, tell them consecrate
yourselves in preparation for tomorrow.
For this is what the Lord God of Israel says.
That which is devoted is among you, Israel.
You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove it.
How do you remove it? We'll find out.
So they go through a process of, of kind of starting broad and
then narrowing it down by tribe and clan and family and house
and in person and it comes through.
So this is, this is a divine process, right?
The Lord is directing them how to narrow down.
So the law. So the key #1 the Lord will
highlight to you what needs to be removed from your tent.
It's a spiritually guided process.
It's not a man made process. The Lord will guide you where
the sin is. And so they do this.
Then Joshua said to Aiken, My son, give glory to the Lord the
God of Israel, and give him the praise.
Tell me what you have done and do not hide it from me.
And Aiken replied, It is true. I have sinned against the Lord
the God of Israel. This is what I have done.
When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylon, 200
shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing 50 shekels.
I coveted them and took them. They're hidden in the ground
inside my tent with the silver underneath.
So he repented. He said I have wronged God.
That's the first step of repentance is admitting that you
have wronged him doesn't stop there.
You have to go on and actually change.
I can't say God, I'm sorry. And then keep on doing the
things that I've done. All right.
So repentance. So God has highlighted who needs
to happen. And so they send the messengers
in his tent. Then they find the silver there
in the robe, whatever. Then Joshua took it.
All of Israel took Aiken Sinozera, the silver, the gold,
the robe, the gold wedge, his sons and daughters, his cattles,
his donkeys, his sheep, his tent.
And all that he had to the valley of Achor.
Joshua said you've brought this trouble.
Why have you brought this trouble on us?
The Lord will bring trouble on you today.
And all of Israel stoned him and after that stoned the rest.
They burned them over ache and the heaped a large pile of
rocks. So for you to go through
deliverance properly, for you to be fully free, you need to be
stoned and you need to be burned.
Amen. No, no.
But who? Who took our punishment for us?
Jesus. He was beaten.
He was crucified. His blood has purchased our
freedom. It's because of him and his
sacrifice that we can actually be free from those things.
The process of going through deliverance and repentance,
unearthing those things that we've hidden knowingly or
unknowingly, they can be unknowingly too.
All of that and the, the end product of all of that is
disconnecting it with the blood of the Lord Jesus, grasping onto
his sacrifice, grasping onto the things that he's done and
saying, Lord, it's not me, but it's by your grace, It's by what
you've finished on the cross, right?
And so all of this, the way the curse is lifted is through the
death and resurrection of Jesus. And so that's the endpoint of
deliverance is we dig up all these things guided by the Holy
Spirit. They get brought before the Lord
and Christ. The death of Christ covers the
blood of Christ covers those things and disconnects us from
them we've made alive. We have no business being
attached to those things unknowingly or knowingly.
It's a very like it blew my mind how clear this process was
outlined in the Bible, right? Wars in like battles in the Old
Testament are a prophetic of spiritual warfare.
And so this is spiritual warfare.
Deliverance is spiritual warfare.
Asking God to uncover those things bring to your mind to
show you the things hidden in the tent is spiritual warfare
and I am convinced we all need it.
And good news for us is that we have people who have given their
lives in obedience to the Lord and they wholeheartedly pursue
him and will fight with you until the stuff is gone.
It's not every pastor will do that, but these guys do it.
And I'm so grateful for them because when I was in my the
darkest night of pain, torment, they were there.
And, and. And it's not just me.
I've heard them say it to other people.
We will fight with you until this thing is gone.
I'd heard them say it to countless people.
And then they said it to me. And.
And I understood the weight of those words.
Said it to you. Yeah.
They will fight with each and everyone of you until it's gone
because they're hardest to see you free.
They're hardest to see you excel in the things the Lord has
called you to. And that's the call of this
house. You're not here by accident.
You're not here because you found this on the Internet.
You're not here because someone invited you.
You're here because God called you here to this house.
You're not here by accident. Now the next step is don't make
the mistake I did and push it until it becomes a thing you
need to do. Deal with it, move on.
It's not a big deal. There's no shame involved in
deliverance. All have sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God, right? There's no shame.
They're not writing things down and remembering things.
No one's judging you, none of it.
And so my encouragement is as we go through these next 4 weeks,
as we're learning about the things of God, about
deliverance, about how to fight in the supernatural, it starts
here. This is the baseline.
I want this and I think this is the heart.
This is the baseline of the church that everyone is free.
Everyone has torn off those bandages.
The grave clothes have come off. That is the foundation from
which we can build on that foundation of holiness, of
repentance of of a right heart before God is what this church
needs to be built on. It's not going to be built on,
on just, oh, it's not that bad. I'm I don't need to be holy.
Other people are holy. You know, my parents are good
enough like they do all the good things.
I don't need to you know, that was you know, it's it's our
responsibility as a church to do this.
And so I encourage you. What are the things in your life
that you're not seeing breakthrough And some really
common things are like lust, anger relationships.
How how is your relationship with your wife or your spouse?
How are your relationship with your kids and your family?
Does the enemy have a hold there?
Serious illnesses like reoccurring back pain or
nightmares, You know, all of these things are signs that the
enemy has some kind of influence.
I'm not saying it's full blown because you're not possessed,
right? We think of demon position as
the man in the Garcians who is completely naked and running
around wild and things like that.
That doesn't happen. It's a lot more subtle
Oppression. Yeah, it's oppression.
There's enemy has an influence in your life.
He's got a little hold and he's he's looking to see how much
will you tolerate. I tolerated it for a long time,
tolerated last, tolerated pain for a long time because it
wasn't that big a deal. But it's a sound defeat.
It opens your life up to things that you weren't meant to carry.
Yep. So I hope this morning.
To wake you up, to shake you a little bit, to hopefully make my
point there. And I might be preaching to the
choir here, but that deliverance is in the Bible.
It's God's. It's one of God's plans to make
you free to live a life that's worthy of your calling because
you've been called by God. Amen.
Cool. So make an appointment, make a
time. I'm serious.
Make a time. Go through it well, you have
nothing. You have nothing to.
Lose, but you have everything to gain.
My spiritual life has not been the same the 20 years I've been
a Christian. The last six months have just
been on a whole nother level. Like I just, I cannot explain to
you how much it has shifted my life, how much it's shifted my
spirituality, how much it's shifted my connection to God.
The way I, I, I, I spend time with him, the way I read the
word, the way he speaks to me, it's completely, completely
miles different than what it was.
And that's coming from a kid who was, I was honestly like, not
that bad. I love, I worship the Lord in
the night. Like I would hear from him, but
I'm telling you this is a whole nother level that God has for
you. There is a whole nother level
that he has for you. And it starts with these basic
principles, cutting the things off, digging the things that are
in the tent, asking him to show you Cool, I've taken.
Way. A lot of time, really.
Sorry. Cool.
I'm just going to pray and we'll wrap it up, Lord.
We thank you that you're a. Gracious God.
The Almighty God, Creator of the universe, the Creator and
Sustainer of all things. You've called us by name.
You've given us a calling. You've enlisted us in your army.
God mediocrity. Mediocre.
Christianity is not an option for us, and so we repent of all
the times that we've let it become the thing that's driven
us. Just going through the motions,
going to church, coming back, going home.
Lord forgive us, and Lord we pray enlighten us in the coming.
Days in the. Coming weeks, God, show us the
things that have been hidden in our tents.
Show us the things that have been hidden in the tents of our
fathers, our forefathers, Lord, give us the knowledge and the
wisdom to uncover them. Bring them before you and break
them. God.
Give us the humility to ask for help when we need it.
And Lord. We thank you that freedom.
Is your plan for us? Thank you Lord, in Jesus name we
pray. Amen.
Thanks for joining us at Omega if you need.
Prayer for healing or breakthrough, or simply to find
out more, please head to our website or Facebook page in the
links below.