2: Preparation for Victory

Copyright © 2026 ¹

The campaign for the conquest of Canaan starts with a battle so famous that even young Sunday School children know the basics of the story. Yes, Jericho’s “walls came a-tumblin’ down,” as the young ones sing. But those who are more mature want to learn what God did to prepare His people for this battle, the overall campaign, and the complete victory He helped them to win. Let’s start with the “bookends” of the Jericho story, and fill in the rest as we progress.

Scripture Reading: Joshua 2:1,23-24 nkjv

Acknowledging God’s Supernatural Preparation

Let’s consider the preparation of the children of Israel for victory in the land of Canaan. And in understanding that preparation, we will understand also that their victory has been made a type of our personal victory—victory over sin, victory over this world, victory through and in the Lord Jesus.

Now first of all the land had to be spied out. You will remember this had been done before. Forty years previously twelve men had been sent out by Moses, and they spied out the land and brought back a report. Their names are put on record, for God has made it very clear who went up. Whether people like the Bible or not, whether they believe the Bible or not, in that book, having lasted for so many thousands of years, are the actual names of those that were sent out and spied out the land.

Many others have investigated this land of Canaan in a spiritual sense. The land of Canaan represents the land of spiritual renewal, the land of spiritual delight in the Lord, the land of victory over sin, the land of the Spirit, the land of walking with God even while on the earth, before heaven comes.

Numerous honored men, many who have control over the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the Church, have contended for various viewpoints about this. Here is the crux of the matter: Is it God’s will that His Church in the present day should be just as it was in the early days when the Lord Jesus founded it? Did the Lord Jesus start off His church in the way He intended it to be carried on? Or did He start it off in a supernatural way, and then leave it with only the guidance of good, honest, sincere men and the guidance of a book? Did the Lord substitute that for miraculous happenings in the early church, and the dynamic character of the people, and that wonderful ability they had to go even through martyrdom in the most awful, torturous, excruciating ways? Has He substituted all of that for just a book and the guidance of a clergy or ministry? Or is it His will that that early church’s fervor, that early church dynamic, the early church purity, the early church power, should be the mark of the church throughout all the ages?

Those questions lead us to consider a controversial passage in Scripture, found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 16. It is a hinge on which the church turns:

• ¹⁴Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. ¹⁵And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. ¹⁶He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. ¹⁷And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; ¹⁸they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
• Mark 16:14-18

Now, I’m not going to expound those verses in Mark’s gospel. But the power described in the passage shows what God wants, and what Jesus wants for His Church.³ It’s to be a very powerful church that has the Holy Spirit manifested in this deep, wonderful and spiritual way. In our day, it’s like a spiritual promised land which is to be investigated.

And that brings us back to Numbers 13:1-16, where we find the names of those twelve men who were sent to “spy out” the promised land, to investigate it: Shammua the son of Zaccur; Shaphat of the tribe of Simeon, the son of Hori; Caleb, the son of Jephunnel of Judah; Igal, son of Joseph, of Issachar; and so on. Now, I wouldn’t like to be one of those men who went and explored the land and then brought back a bad report, because their names are on record. God doesn’t forget. For all time, the men who went into the land and brought back a false report are on record, as well as the names of the two, Caleb and Joshua, who brought back the true report. The men who brought the false report were liars, because they said it was a bad land. They said it’s a land “that devours its inhabitants” (Numbers 13:32). In other words, there isn’t enough food to go around; it’s a starvation land. And more than that, there are giants there (verses 28,33). “We were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight (verse 33). That’s the kind of land it is.” And the people said they couldn’t possibly think of going up to such a land.

Now, when those sent to investigate brought back the report that it was a starvation land which devoured its inhabitants, they carried contradictory evidence. In returning, they brought back—do you remember it?—pomegranates and figs, the fruit of the land (verse 23). Most notably, they brought back the branch of a grapevine which was so laden with grapes that it had to be bound to a staff and carried on the shoulders of two men. It was too heavy for one man to carry! So it was a good land; those inspectors were liars, undercutting the people’s trust in God. That’s why God has put their name on record for all time.

And I would warn you very solemnly, that just as the names of those who brought up a false report of the land of Canaan—which represents the spiritual land of Canaan—are on record, so there are men today who are denying the truth of the Scripture, and their names, too, are on record before God. There are men who are instructing our young ministers in unbelief, and their names are on record before God. Our ministers are often turned out of our theological seminaries doubting the Bible, denying the miracles, and destroying the supernatural character of our God, as if God is limited just to psychology and human intelligence, philosophy, and ethics. Our God is not limited in any way, for He is the everlasting, all-powerful God, who can do exactly as He likes. As old Samuel Wesley, the father of John Wesley said, the supernatural character of Christianity is its greatest evidence of truth.

I would like to go on record as believing in the supernatural and in all the miracles of the Bible. It takes a bigger miracle not to believe the miracles than it does to believe the miracles. So many preachers in the churches in America and Canada are preaching that the miracles were only natural events. I declare that they were supernatural, not natural, events.

These preachers will say, for example, that there was no manna that came down; rather it was a kind of aphid that was feeding on the desert tamarisk. And the irritation that their beaks made as they sucked the juice out formed a kind of sucrose or saccharin substance which was sweet to the taste. The Arabs gather that to this day. And that, say these unbelieving preachers, was the manna—simply produced by these plant lice that were tickling these plants. Yet the Bible says there were over a million and a half people of the children of Israel being fed, so those aphids, those plant lice, worked very hard! There must have been so many of them that the desert must have been completely “lousy.” (That’s not a rude remark, because, after all, they were lice!)⁴ And these hardworking aphids stopped work on Saturdays, which is another miracle. But wait, there’s a bigger miracle: those plant lice which stopped working every Saturday (that is, the Jewish Sabbath) also had to double their output every Friday!⁵

All the miracles are like that to those ministers who deny the truth of Scripture. They suppose that Moses discovered water underneath the ground by using his divining rod; so he struck the ground and water came out. Oh what humbug and nonsense! It must have been a mighty strike to have drawn enough water out to quench the thirst of upwards of two million people, plus all their livestock! No wonder the Bible says he struck the rock and rivers broke forth. Have you ever seen the delightful Sunday-school picture of the water coming out of a small crack in the rock? Standing nearby are these gracious, beautiful Israelite leaders, tall and erect, with their waterpots on their heads. And there are others bending gracefully down to fill their pots. Just off to the left there’s a cow lapping up the residue. Well, no, there were two million people besides cattle, and they all had to drink from a little spring like that! What nonsense! Rivers flowed out. Those rivers became a type of the Almighty God, out of whom flow rivers of living water.

When the Lord Jesus stood and proclaimed, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink,” He was proclaiming that out of His own being there would come rivers of living water. He was not saying that if you come to Him and drink, rivers of living water will come out of you. He was saying that out of Himself come rivers of living water, as the Scripture has said. The Scripture quite clearly reveals it all the way through. Rivers of living water flow down. And when they pierced Jesus’ side on the cross, it was an evidence that out of him flows an abundant stream to provide for everyone.

I wouldn’t like to have my name eternally inscribed on the list of the doubters, as some of these ministers are very grateful to do. They preach with a mix of psychological remarks and a touch of Hebrew and Greek. People don’t understand them, but they think that shows it’s a mighty sermon.

People must think, “What’s the good of paying a man to preach what you could say yourself, and actually understand? But when Jesus spoke, He kept it simple. And the mark of true spirituality, and being taught of God, is not that you talk above other people’s heads; it’s that you talk in such a manner that people understand it and are blessed and refreshed. They’re convicted of sin. They’re also convinced of righteousness. And that’s what we want, is it not?

So we’ll leave those named Israelite men who spied out the land of Canaan and then went on record as liars. Let’s focus on the two out of the twelve who kept to the truth. So the proportion was two to ten, or one to five, which, sadly, is about the proportion of ministers today who speak the truth from the pulpit. Unfortunately, the congregation followed the majority of the men who spied out the land.

As for those two faithful men of God who spoke the truth (Numbers 14:6-9), “all the congregation said stone them with stones” (verse 10). I know personally quite a number of outstanding ministers, faithful servants of God who walk with Him, sober, humble, lowly, highly intelligent, well educated, yet who have been turned out of their church at the request of the congregation because they were teaching an experience which would have made the congregation walk with God. And the congregation didn’t want to walk with God. They wanted to walk with Madam Bubble,⁶ a character John Bunyan uses to represent the mistress of this world.

The spirit behind “stone them with stones” isn’t that different from the one behind “Get him out of our pulpit”! “It cannot be,” said Jesus, “that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33); and often that same spirit is manifest in our churches against such faithful preachers. If a man is popular, he’s not a prophet. He may say a lot of prophetic things, but if he’s popular, he’s not a prophet. A prophet’s close walk with God makes many people uncomfortable to be around him.

But, far from being stoned, God preserved the two truthful men, while He punished the ten lying spies, killing them with a plague (Numbers 14:36-38). And though the testimony of the two who bore witness to the truth, Joshua and Caleb (Numbers 14:6-9), incited calls for their stoning (14:10a), immediately “the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of meeting before all the children of Israel” (14:10b).

Remember that the Lord has said “‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established’” (Matthew 18:16).⁷ Forty years later God once again brought the Israelites to the border of the promised land (Joshua 1). But this time only two spies were sent out—“By the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established” (Deuteronomy 19:15). When they returned from their surveillance, the two spies brought back a true witness saying, “The people of the land are afraid!”

The older generation was deceived and they perished in the wilderness; but the new generation had learned the folly of the previous generation’s unbelief, and they were determined to enter in. This is typical of true revival; when God again revives His people, a hungry and thirsty people enter in.

The Ministry of a Harlot

²And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, “Behold, men have come here tonight from the children of Israel to search out the country.” ³So the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the country.” ⁴Then the woman took the two men and hid them. So she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. ⁵And it happened as the gate was being shut, when it was dark, that the men went out. Where the men went I do not know; pursue them quickly, for you may overtake them.” ⁶(But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order on the roof.) ⁷Then the men pursued them by the road to the Jordan, to the fords. And as soon as those who pursued them had gone out, they shut the gate.

• ⁸Now before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof, ⁹and said to the men: “I know that the Lord has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you. ¹⁰For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. ¹¹And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.”
• Joshua 2:2-11

Now, have you noticed how God opened the door into this promised land? He opened it through a harlot! God does remarkable, extraordinary things. He subverted what might have been the pride of men, and in this case He did it through the means of a woman. That woman, Rahab the harlot, was the means by which He opened the door into a tremendous spiritual opportunity, the land of Canaan, the land of promise, the land of obedience to the indwelling Holy Spirit. We see Him doing the same again when He came on earth and opened the truth of the indwelling Holy Spirit to a woman of ill repute. Imagine! Jesus shared this truth with the woman at a well, a woman who wasn’t living with a man who was her husband, but who had had five husbands. Jesus said, “And the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly,” for she had said, “I have no husband” (John 4:17-18). And yet the Lord Jesus picked her out to proclaim the everlasting gospel to her and through her: that we may have the indwelling Holy Spirit as an upspringing well of water that will spring up to eternal life, and we’ll never thirst again. That is the genuine baptism in the Holy Spirit, the fullness of the new birth. That is “all things new.”

And notice the Lord Jesus never took her through a typical “Gospel presentation.” He never even told her she was a sinner; she convicted herself. He never told her she was going to a “hot hell.” (And by the way, she may have been going there. I’m not saying she wasn’t; only He never told her that.) He didn’t say, “Read this tract.” He never brought her to confession. He never even said, “You must repent of your sins.” He offered her the Holy Spirit as the sovereign remedy for all her problems. Isn’t that wonderful? Dare we do things like that? Dare we go to a person who is a real sinner and offer them the Holy Spirit as a supreme remedy?

Do you know why Jesus did that? Because that’s the gospel of the kingdom, that if we receive the Holy Spirit, we are born of God, with a complete manifest change coming in our nature. He will indwell us and we’ll never thirst again. There will be no more thirsting for the world’s charms. Philosophy’s charms for an intellectual person will be gone. Theological concepts as a means to an end will be completely gone. Why? Because He who is the Spirit of truth has come. Jesus went right to the heart of the matter and offered the woman at the well the Holy Spirit. Isn’t that supremely wonderful?!

And so obedience to the Indwelling Holy Spirit—of which Canaan was a type—was opened through Jesus’ interaction with a woman who was a sinner. The Lord Jesus revealed the true Canaan, which every one of you may believe in and enter into, through the mouth of an immoral woman. We’re not condemning the woman; Jesus didn’t. We condemn the sin, but we’re not condemning the woman. That’s a different thing. Jesus offered her salvation. All she had to do was to believe and receive. Jesus made it very clear later when He said,

• ³⁷…“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink, ³⁸He who believes in Me.⁸ As the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being [that is, from Christ’s innermost being] will flow rivers of living water.’” ³⁹But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
• John 7:37-39 nasb⁹

And that Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost.

Rahab’s Petition

• ²²They departed and went to the mountain, and stayed there three days until the pursuers returned. The pursuers sought them all along the way, but did not find them.
• Joshua 2:12-22

Now let’s return to how the Israelites finally entered the promised land, Canaan. Rahab (the Jericho harlot) petitioned the Israelite spies whom she had protected, asking them for a true sign and token that she and family members within her house would be spared (Joshua 2:12-13) when the Lord overthrew her city. That true sign and token was a scarlet line (or cord) which was bound in her window. Now, it’s interesting that when it says here that “you shall bind this line of scarlet cord in the window” (v. 18), the word “line” is the Hebrew tiqvah.¹⁰ Let me tell you how that word is translated in other parts of the Scripture. That Hebrew word is used 33 times in the Old Testament. Twenty-three times it’s translated “hope,” seven times “expectation,” and once “the thing that I longed for,”¹¹ which is hope anyway. Only twice is it translated “line”—here in Joshua 2:18 and 21. So actually it’s not merely a line at all; it’s hope! “You shall bind this hope, this expectation of deliverance in your window”; and she did it.

This time, the new generation entered Canaan, like a flood, and victory went before them. I believe there is a generation in America, even at the present time, which is going to experience a mighty revival. I believe God is going again to give us true Holy Ghost revival, which we don’t have at this present time. The true mark of Holy Ghost revival is always repentance and tears. There are floods of tears over sin, tears of joy over repentant sinners, and shouts of victory and great joy. Where there are no tears and no repentance, it’s not a true Holy Ghost revival.

When the Lord comes down in sovereign power, which I believe He will do, we will find that “mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13), for revival always comes before judgment on the earth. The thunder clouds of coming judgment are mounting up on the horizon exceedingly high, but God is going to give us a real experience of revival again. The saints are praying for it. Your heart yearns for it. The more you long for the outpouring of God’s Spirit, the more dissatisfied you are with the spiritual scene everywhere as you see it.

Victory in the Promised Land of Holy Spirit Power

So the Israelites entered into the promised land and, as we shall see, God gave them victory. Now I want to share with you about God’s plan, how you will be enabled to have complete victory in your land. It’s God’s great, overwhelming desire that you should have victory.

What is the most honoring thing to God? It is for a man or a woman, a boy or a girl to walk pure and clean in the midst of a sinful and an adulterous generation. That’s more honoring to God than a great big church that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build (and probably has a great big debt on it anyway). Do you see what God is going to do? The drug scene will get worse. Immorality will get worse. (It’s bad enough as it is!) The educational system in America and Canada is often rotten, foul, filthy, and vile; unspeakable atrocities are being perpetrated on our children. Their young minds are being soiled and fouled by men and women whose minds are like sewers for corruptness.

But you see, “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse” (2 Timothy 3:13 kjv), which is why things are exceedingly foul and vile. Therefore, God will raise up a people who will walk spotless and pure in the midst of it all. They will bring honor to God by being utterly untarnished and unsoiled. And the more wicked the world becomes, the brighter God’s light will shine. The more foul the governments of the world, the whiter the garments of God’s children shine. And it will not be because His children put on an extra struggle, or because they believe in a higher morality, or because they try very much harder, or because they fast and pray. It will be because God the Holy Spirit will indwell them in sovereign power.

Through such preparation and experience God will bring His church home to glory, in the original brightness, light, purity and power they had at the beginning. For the Son of God died upon the cross that He might sanctify that church. The word is quite clear: His children have everlasting life. That is a great truth, but that’s only half of the gospel—“God so loved the world.” The other half of the gospel is this—

• ²⁵…Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, ²⁶that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, ²⁷that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
• Ephesians 5:25-27

And the bride of Christ, His Church, the true new-birth believers are going to be taken home to Him, and are going to be dressed in white garments, spotless and white.

• And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.
• Revelation 19:8 kjv

God is most honored when his children live clean, pure lives. I believe in all the manifestations of the gifts of the Spirit to be in operation in the church. But that’s a very minor thing to me in comparison with the church manifesting the glory of the fruit of the Spirit. That brings honor to God. “By their fruits, you will know them” (Matthew 7:20), and this shall be before Jesus comes. For “mercy rejoices against judgment” (James 2:13 kjv).

Seven Preparations for Victory

Take notice of the special theme of seven in the Jericho narrative. I’m going to give you the seven characteristics of the victory that God gives you. Now that’s made very clear in Joshua 6:4, where the people are commanded how they are to take the city of Jericho. Here are the Lord’s instructions:

• ³“You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. ⁴And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets.”
• Joshua 6:3-4

That’s once around the city for each of six days; then seven times around on the seventh day. That means that they walked around the city a total of 13 times. On the seventh day, they were to shout. But as they walked around the city on the first six days, they were to keep silent.

God believes in silence. It’s good to be quiet, yet not many people can get quiet. The children of Israel might have had the same struggle being quiet on the marches of the first six days. But the last day they were to shout. And with that shout, the walls fell down.

Now each time around Jericho stands for a factor of victory. There are seven factors that play a part in the victory as the Israelites enter Canaan. What are they?

First Preparation for Victory: Faith

The first factor, of course, is faith.

• …without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
• Hebrews 11:6

We have to believe God and believe His word, the word that He gives us. I know there is a broad sense in which I can “believe everything God has ever said.” That’s very general. But in particular, faith rises in me to believe the word that God gives me personally. It’s a general thing to say, “Well, I believe the Bible from cover to cover and all the promises that are in it. I believe every one of them.” That may be faith in the Bible, but it’s not biblical faith from God; rather, it’s just a human believe-ism. Perhaps that is something of a starting point, but faith is not just believe-ism.

Faith believes something very definite. Faith is believing what I know to be true.¹² Faith is not believing what I fear to be false. You cannot believe anything that you don’t know is true. Now when God gives you a word directly to yourself, you know that’s true. For “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).¹³ When the Holy Spirit quickens a word from God to an individual, making it real to them, they find themselves operating in the strength of God-given faith which accompanies such a word. You will notice that Spirit-filled speakers will tell you about special words that God gave them on special occasions that transformed their lives, because those words were specific guidance for them.

Again, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” That’s another good reason for waiting upon God and listening to Him—that He might speak to us. Then we operate under His direct word. And you can always do what God tells you to do, for with the word comes power. All God’s commandments are His enablings. If God says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,” He not only means you ought to do it, but He also means you will do it, because He’ll enable you to do it. Isn’t that comforting? All His commandments are His enablings. Faith is of great importance.

In our Canaan story, faith is revealed in the way Israel took the Ark of the Covenant with them. God had a covenant with Israel. His covenant was to be their God, and to bring them into the promised land. Wherever the children of Israel went, the Ark of the Covenant went with them. When in the wilderness, God ordered them to make the Ark of the Covenant. The tablets of the law were put into the Ark, which meant that the covenant was a covenant maintained by keeping the law. But atop the Ark of the Covenant sat something remarkable, which was the mercy seat; this meant God would always have mercy on penitent law breakers. And that’s why He commanded the sacrifices of bulls and goats, the blood of which covered sin, until the time of Jesus’ death, which put away sin.

Jesus’ blood on Calvary does not cover sin. The word atonement doesn’t occur once concerning the Lord Jesus’ death upon the cross. Because it wasn’t an atonement in the Old Testament sense, which is kaphar, to cover.¹⁴ Jesus did not atone for or cover our sins; no, He “put away sin, by the sacrifice of Himself” (Hebrews 9:26). That brings you the victory, doesn’t it? Your sin isn’t covered; it’s abolished, blotted out! And He will not only put away your sins that you’ve committed, but He’ll give you a pure heart, too, which is so honoring to Him. How pleasing it is to Him when, in the midst of a shabby, dishonorable, lying world, His children walk with pure hearts, with a word of truth on their lips!

So by faith in the word of the Lord, the priests went into the Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant; that means they believed in God’s covenant.

• ¹⁵…as those who bore the ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest), ¹⁶that the waters which came down from upstream stood still, and rose in a heap very far away at Adam, the city that is beside Zaretan. So the waters that went down into the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, failed, and were cut off; and the people crossed over opposite Jericho. ¹⁷Then the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan; and all Israel crossed over on dry ground, until all the people had crossed completely over the Jordan.
• Joshua 3:15-17

Now when the feet of the priests touched the water of the Jordan, the Jordan rolled back exactly as it had happened in the days of the Red Sea crossing. But you will find that many people do not believe that God opened a path through the midst of the waters. I’d like again to go on record with the truth that God did what the Scripture says. I’m absolutely certain that the psalmist is right.¹⁵ And the writer of Exodus is right. And the writers of all those references in the Bible to the Red Sea crossing are right,¹⁶ that God opened a path through the midst of the waters. It’s untrue to say that it was a low tide. It’s untrue to say that it was a northwest wind. (The Bible contradicts that and tells you it was “a strong east wind” anyway.¹⁷) And it says that the waters were “a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left” (Exodus 14:22). A wall!

You say, “Oh, I don’t believe that.” Don’t you believe God could do that, then? What kind of miserable God do you have? My dear friend, some people have a “God” that’s compassed only in the covers of the Bible. Others have a god that isn’t even in the Bible. But I have a God in whom are the whole heavens and earth and all the universes. God is not in the universe; the universe is in God, our great God! The description of the waters at the Red Sea crossing—“the floods stood upright like a heap” (Exodus 15:8)— is the same phrase used of the Jordan crossing (Joshua 3:13,16). If God can’t make water to stand in a heap, then I say He can’t make an iceberg. You’ve never seen an iceberg? Isn’t that water standing “in a heap”? “Oh,” you say, “that’s different.” The difference is only in your mind. God can do it—“The depths congealed in the heart of the sea” (Exodus 15:8).

Praise God for faith! When I come to insuperable difficulties in my own life, I have a God who commands the winds and the waves, who can say, “Peace, be still,” and there’s a great calm. I have a God who can make a path for me through the midst of impassable waters. That’s worthy of a hallelujah, isn’t it? Praise God! And praise the Lord for God-given faith!

Second Victory Preparation: Consecration

Now, the next thing needed for the complete defeat of the enemy is consecration. This is depicted in the building of the two 12-stone monuments memorializing the Jordan River crossing.

• ⁴Then Joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the children of Israel, one man from every tribe; ⁵and Joshua said to them: “Cross over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, ⁶that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ ⁷Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. And these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever.”
• Joshua 4:4-7

If you read all of chapter four carefully, you will notice that they had to take two sets of 12 stones. First the twelve men bore out of the river the twelve stones for the land-based memorial:

• And the children of Israel did so, just as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones from the midst of the Jordan, as the Lord had spoken to Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them to the place where they lodged, and laid them down there.
• Joshua 4:8

Ah, but then they return, under Joshua’s direction, to take another twelve stones:

• Then Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests who bore the ark of the covenant stood; and they are there to this day.
• Joshua 4:9

Soon the flow of the Jordan will be released (verses 17-18), and the waters will gush over, around, and through this memorial heap, which will bear witness to the place where the feet of the priests stood on dry ground.

Once Israel is across Jordan, and the river’s waters return to their overflow state, what happens to the first set of twelve stones?

• ¹⁹Now the people came up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they camped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. ²⁰And those twelve stones which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal. ²¹Then he spoke to the children of Israel, saying: “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’ ²²then you shall let your children know, saying, ‘Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land’; ²³for the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over, ²⁴that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
• Joshua 4:19-24

These two heaps of stones are memorials forever (verse 7), never ever to be taken away. This consecration is once and for all time.

I mention once-and-for-all consecration because so many people keep on consecrating themselves. I know a good minister who told me that he was always coming forward at the invitation to give himself wholly to God. Why the repetition? Because after time, he felt that he couldn’t have done it properly. He’d hear another very good, hearty, warm address on consecration and sanctification, and he’d come forward again. And he said that one day when he was kneeling down there, the Lord spoke to him and said, “Don’t let Me see you here again.” That’s because consecration is forever. Make a solemn consecration to God and understand that God is not like men; He accepts your consecration forever. Come again and again to confirm it, if you will. But don’t think you’re making a new consecration in the sense you’ve never done it before. Have trust in the Beloved to whom you have consecrated yourself, so that you confidently can say with Paul, I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day (2 Timothy 1:12).

Third Preparation for Victory: A Circumcised Heart

The next event after crossing the Jordan, according to Scripture, was that Joshua circumcised all those who had never been circumcised, that is, the generation born since the exodus from Egypt. The older generation had passed away.¹⁸ As soon as the new generation came into the land of Canaan, they were circumcised at Gilgal.

This has deep spiritual significance. In Deuteronomy 30, before Moses passed on, before the Israelites came to the promised land, God made this remarkable statement through Moses:

• ⁵“Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. ⁶And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”
• Deuteronomy 30:5-6

The doctrine of the circumcised heart is all the way through the Scripture. It was what Stephen accused the Jews of lacking:

• “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.”
• Acts 7:51

If you don’t resist the Holy Spirit, and you accept Him, He’ll give you a circumcised heart, meaning that the old man, the old carnal nature, is gone from your heart. “Put off the old man with his deeds” (Colossians 3:9)¹⁹ is God’s teaching on the circumcision of the heart. You understand it takes place after new birth, because you have to be born first and circumcised afterward. Jesus was circumcised the eighth day after he was born. It’s a great doctrine and a great truth.

Some of you long to love the Lord your God with all your heart, but you can’t, because you have “an evil heart of unbelief” (Hebrews 3:12). I tell you in God’s name that He’ll gladly cleanse your heart. It’s one of God’s blessed provisions in Pentecost, the purifying of your heart by faith. Referring back to the glorious experience when Cornelius was baptized in the Holy Spirit, Peter put it on record:

• ⁷And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: “Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. ⁸So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, ⁹and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
• Acts 15:7-9

This God, who knows and searches hearts (Jeremiah 17:10), hearts which are “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9), can purify your heart. This Jesus, who said, “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts” and sins of every variety (Matthew 15:19), offers you, in the words of Charles Wesley:

A heart in ev’ry thought renewed
And full of love divine,
Perfect and right and pure and good,
A copy, Lord, of Thine!
A heart resigned, submissive, meek,
My great Redeemer’s throne:
Where only Christ is heard to speak,
Where Jesus reigns alone!

That heart purity is available in the baptism of the Holy Spirit; it’s yours! Have you claimed the Spirit and not yet claimed a pure heart? Then claim it, and you’ll find it’s true. You’ll find you can love the Lord your God with all your heart! How can you expect the carnal mind to love God? “It is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be” (Romans 8:7).

I’m so glad that God revealed this truth to me years ago. When God gave me a pure heart, which He did when I asked him to, and when He gave me faith to receive it, I can truthfully say that since then, even amidst many failures, I haven’t wavered in loving Him. Of course, I have had to confess wrong things many times. I’ve been angry, and I shouldn’t have been angry, and things like that. I’m a human being. I only have a human nature, with a Divine One living in it. But I’m glad to say He gave me a pure heart and He has kept it pure toward Him. I only want to serve and love the Lord my God. I recommend it. A circumcised heart is God’s will for you. It’s a part of the condition of walking in the promised land, and it’s a most important factor in victory.

Fourth Preparation for Victory: The End of the Manna

The fourth factor in preparing for victory might seem strange at first glance. It was the end of God’s daily provision of manna for the Israelites. Do you remember?

• ¹⁰Now the children of Israel camped in Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight on the plains of Jericho. ¹¹And they ate of the produce of the land on the day after the Passover, unleavened bread and parched grain, on the very same day. ¹²Then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land; and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate the food of the land of Canaan that year.
• Joshua 5:10-12

The manna ceased on the same day that they ate of the food of the land. In other words, once you enter the land of Canaan, you can get your nourishment directly from God. You’re not going to be spoon-fed anymore. Of course, you’ll go to church, and you’ll thank God for those who minister to you. But if that’s all the spiritual nourishment you’re getting, you’ll be a spoon-fed baby forever.

Do you know why some of our Christian gatherings aren’t the success they ought to be? Because you only come to get; you don’t come to give. And you come empty instead of coming full up. What overflowing meetings we should have if every one of us had waited upon God and came full instead of coming empty!

We ministers are glad to share with you what we’ve got; anything we have, we will freely share with you. But don’t you see how much nicer it is if you have at last really entered in by faith into the promised land, where you don’t need manna anymore? You will feed on the produce of the land now. You will sow and gather yourself. You won’t always be reaping other people’s food; you’ll be producing your own! That’s what God means here. God will open the Scriptures to you, and He will show you things He’s never shown me or anyone else. God will open the Bible to you, and it will be a “new Bible,” because He will feed you on seed that you have sown, and harvest that you are reaping, so that Christ is, by the Spirit, your daily and hourly food. We feed on Him directly, by faith, with thanksgiving.

The daily “spoon-feeding” provision of manna was for the wilderness wandering. The victorious invaders of the land of Canaan wait on God and enjoy the bounty of the “land flowing with milk and honey” and other “solid food” provided to the spiritually mature.

Fifth Preparation for Victory: Visions & Revelation

Soon Joshua and all Israel stood before Jericho, and the Lord spoke to Joshua:

• ^6:1Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and none came in. ²And the Lord said to Joshua: “See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor.”
• Joshua 5:13–6:2

It was the Lord Himself who appeared before Joshua, who spoke to him and gave him personal guidance. Here’s a picture of our new experience in God. With the Holy Spirit comes vision and revelation. I believe the word of Joel where it says:

“And it shall come to pass afterward
That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions.
–Joel 2:28–

I believe that with the true baptism of the Holy Spirit, there always comes gifts of the Spirit, and He is still “distributing to each one individually as He wills” (1 Corinthians 12:11b).

This isn’t the time and place to go into the list of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. Instead, let’s just look at three spiritual gifts mentioned here in Joel:

• Prophecy is not sermonizing. It’s a direct inspirational word given from God.
• Don’t be confused about visions. Too often we say something like, “Well, young man, get a vision”; and what we mean is “get a hope for the future.” But a vision is a direct picture language from God—the Lord showing you His truth in a picture.
• And don’t mistake dreaming, either. A dream is not just old men now wistfully dreaming because once upon a time they were young, and now they’re old, so they dream about what was and what might have been. What a parody of Bible truth!

So prophecy, visions, and dreams—expect these from God. I say, it does enhance the blessing!

Have you ever been in a prayer meeting that lasted two hours? Ever been in a prayer meeting that lasted an hour, but it was so dry you wished it had been only a quarter of an hour? I confess I’ve been in prayer meetings where I’ve taken candies with me, because I knew what the meeting was going to be like. And I sucked candies because of the abominable dryness of the prayer meeting!

But I also speak from experience about what a delight it is to be in a prayer meeting that starts at eight o’clock, and goes on to, say, four o’clock in the morning. What makes it different from the deadly dry meetings? The gifts of the Spirit are in operation, with God talking to us, with God manifesting Himself, with God lifting us up into His glory. You don’t want to go home! And you don’t miss the night’s sleep, because you go home walking on air. These are prayer meetings such as all churches ought to have; these are glorious prayer meetings as they should be. Then you can say “the prayer meeting is the powerhouse of the church.”

The prayer meeting, when they have one, is often the driest meeting of the church. It ought to be the one that’s the most attended because of the presence of God’s glory. I’ll come to a prayer meeting if the glory and presence of God are there!

Sixth Preparation for Victory: Obedience

Now we come to the sixth preparation for victory: obedience. How closely obedience is tied to our experience of the Holy Spirit: He is “the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him” (Acts 5:32). Our experience is meant to be a constant upwelling of the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit will stop welling up in you when you disobey. To be filled with the Spirit is not a new injection of the Holy Spirit from outside. One might say that such refillings are upwellings of the Indwelling Well, the Holy Spirit. And He will not upwell when you disobey.

But aren’t you glad to obey your Beloved? He is not a strict God who holds a whip. He is the most loving, tender-hearted Lover: “Draw me away! We will run after You” (Song of Songs 1:4). It’s a delight to please God, a delight to serve Him. What can we do to show our love to Him who loved us so much that He died to get us? How do we express our gratefulness to Him “who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14)? By loving obedience!

I am so glad that He gave Himself that He might purify us. It’s not my business to try to do it anymore. I love to leave it to the Lord to make me holy, to chasten me, to make me the man He wants me to be. I’m several kinds of men: a minister, a father, a husband, and also a brother. I’m also an uncle, and a grandfather. I’m also a friend. I’m a man with all those different characteristics—but I can’t do that job well. It’s too much for me. So my Beloved does it in me, in all these ways. That’s why He gave Himself for me, that He might do all this, purifying me from all iniquity, purifying me unto Himself to be zealous of good works, and loving to do and speak the truth. He brings about my loving, willing obedience. And that’s victory in my spiritual life!

Seventh Preparation for Victory: Praise

The final preparation for victory is praise. All these previous preparations culminate in praise. When do I praise—after the victory or before the victory? Oh, before the victory! True praise is before the victory. Now certainly there is a praise after the victory; but the real praise that brings “the Jericho walls” down is before the victory!

Now praise for the sake of praise is a vanity. There are some good books on praise. Merlin Carothers introduced quite a number of people to praise.²⁰ But don’t make Merlin Carothers’ teaching your gimmick.

Praise is not a gimmick. It’s one of the seven elements of victory. Picking out one of those seven things and making it a “gimmick” is what an unenlightened church usually does. We are suffering today from gimmicky religion, especially in “Spirit-filled” circles. One of the big reasons is that foolish people will throw off all they’ve ever learned, thinking they’ve got to “start fresh,” and so become guinea pigs. So they start chasing devils, or trying to force each other to speak in tongues. And they say to each other, “Well, let’s praise God for everything,” and they praise and praise. Then they’ll spend their time standing up, trying to shout and trying to dance and trying to clap. However, they are generating these things in the flesh, mistaking a worked-up emotional state for the leading of the Holy Spirit.²¹

Gimmicky religion happens because you take one thing and make it the whole. Did you know that one of the greatest forms of error is to make a truth THE truth? There are many truths; but there is only one Truth—Jesus, who says, “I am the Truth” (John 14:6). And because He is the one who indwells us, He will lead us on and teach us to praise aright.

I say again: the praise that pleases God most is praise before the victory. At the end of the seventh circuit around Jericho on the seventh day, the people “shouted with a great shout,” as they had been commanded (Joshua 6:20). When they shouted, God’s victory took place!

• So the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets. And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat.…
• Joshua 6:20

What did the people shout? The Bible doesn’t say. I guess some said, “Glory!” And some said, “Hallelujah!” And some said, “Yah! Jehovah!” And others said—well, what do you say when you’re glad?—some expression of gratitude and gladness to God, an expression of victory, of believing in God. Whatever they shouted, the wall fell flat. “Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city” (Joshua 6:20).

There are many victories ahead for you. But as I warned you before, I warn you again—there are no victories without obstacles and battles. You cannot proclaim the view from the mountain unless you climb to the top of it. You cannot proclaim victory over the enemy unless there’s an enemy to fight. You cannot tell me you have victory over sin unless sin is fighting against you.

But the victory is obtained by what God reveals in these sevenfold preparations for victory. And it culminates with a shout of triumph, a shout of praise, a shout of glory. The praise is confidence that the victory is won already, although you see nothing. It’s like that faith of Abraham, who “went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8), who “considered not his own body now dead” (Romans 4:19), but believed that God promised him a son and therefore he would have a son. “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Romans 4:3). He lived in continuous victory as he walked before God in faith.

And so, with that great and victorious warrior, King David, we also praise our God, saying,

Blessed be the Lord my Rock,
Who trains my hands for war,
And my fingers for battle.²²

He prepares our hearts through all His wise ways—faith, consecration, heart circumcision, manna-less provision, revelation, obedience, and praise. Like Paul, we can exult:

• But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
• 1 Corinthians 15:57

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