Beyond our Passover experience is a wilderness with problems of survival. Not only are there giants to be overcome; there is a promised land to be fully possessed. There are many new and challenging experiences Beyond Passover.
Joshua 5:1 Now it came about when all the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard how the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the sons of Israel until they had crossed, that their hearts melted(losing courage to fight, nothing else to do but surrender), and there was no spirit in them any longer, because of the sons of Israel.
People are beginning to hear about a walk with God in the Spirit. We may be aware of the hunger of the people in the denominational world, but we need to realize the fear that Babylon has of losing its hold on God’s people. They have lost so many already because the cry is being heard: “Come out of her, my people.”
After the first Passover, Israel moved into the wilderness to be taught of the Lord. This Passover that is described in Joshua 5 was even better, because from it the people moved into the conquest and possession of all that God had promised to them.
We, too, must appropriate the promises of God. Appropriation sounds easy. It is a nice word, and it can mean many things. I prefer short simple words: “Take it; it is yours.” That is what God is saying.
At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make for yourself flint knives and circumcise again the sons of Israel the second time.” (This happened during the Stone Age, and even long after this, metal was very precious. To the north, the Hittites had begun to work with iron before this time, but this was not true of the Israelites. The Israelites were circumcised with flint stones rather than with sharp metal knives.)
So Joshua made himself flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the people who came out of Egypt who were males, all the men of war, died in the wilderness along the way, after they came out of Egypt. For all the people who came out were circumcised, but all the people who were born in the wilderness along the way as they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised. For the sons of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, that is, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished because they did not listen to the voice of the Lord, to whom the Lord had sworn that He would not let them see the land which the Lord had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.
And their children whom He raised up in their place, Joshua circumcised; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them along the way. Now it came about when they had finished circumcising all the nation, that they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day. (Gilgal means “rolling away.”)
This deep circumcision is symbolic of something that is happening within us today. The Lord told Joshua that He had rolled away from them the reproach of Egypt. It is one thing to get the people out of Egypt, but it is another thing to get Egypt out of the people. They may have been Israelites, but for forty years they had been thinking like Egyptians.
Likewise, we may be children of the Lord, but in many areas we still may be thinking like Babylonians. We, too, need a time of circumcision to roll away the reproach. We want the Lord to circumcise our hearts so deeply that we are prepared for a completely new day. God has to take the reproach and the conditioning out of us.
Those who did not come up through the ranks of the Pentecostal or the Holiness movements are very fortunate because they do not have so much to unlearn. Many of us are still trying to dig out roots of things that we were taught and conditioned to in days past, even in a time of transition from traditional Christianity into God’s divine order.
The wilderness experience is really a time of transition. First, you are in Egypt; then you come into the wilderness, and from the wilderness you go on into Canaan.
There are Christians all over the country who prefer living in the wilderness to going in and fighting for the land. The Charismatic movement is characteristic of people who prefer the wilderness to Canaan. They have been slaves who think that leaving Egypt makes them a free people. They think they are free to split up churches, to conduct Bible studies wherever they want, to teach anything they want to. Like rebels in the wilderness, they are wandering about without any divine order.
The Word says in Deuteronomy 6:23 that He brought us out, so that He might bring us in.
The wilderness was never meant to be a permanent place of habitation. We are to come into the Kingdom and the theocracy that God had in mind. Wandering around without divine order is anything but what God wants in this hour.
There are many who are thoroughly disillusioned with the denominational world, and they do not want to be submissive to any spiritual authority. They will continue to wander around in the wilderness of anarchy until they die.
If they want to possess God’s promises, they must believe God and go in and fight the giants. They must do the will of God in the army that does not break ranks nor thrust one another through.
If you think that Egypt’s bondage was rigorous and that they governed stringently, just wait until you get into the Kingdom of God. That is true divine order. There you abandon everything of ambition, everything of egotism, knowing that the only thing that counts is for the will of God to be done and the Lord to be glorified.
Submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ is not readily attained by men who want to run around the country, doing their own thing, as they build a name and a kingdom for themselves. When you leave the kingdom of Pharaoh, God’s intention and purpose is that there shall be no other kingdom but His from that time on.
While the sons of Israel camped at Gilgal, they observed the Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the desert plains of Jericho.
That was a beautiful Passover, different from the first Passover that was kept in Egypt. They were still a little sore, but the reproach of Egypt had been rolled away, and they were ready for something new.
The only accompaniment to this Passover was the rattle of swords and the roar of giants up the hill, and the contemplation that when they left this Passover, they were moving into the battle and into a new day.
This is a picture of our position in our walk with God right now. In a sense, we are declaring war in the spirit because we are determined to possess what really belongs to us.
God told these Israelites that He was giving them all the land He had promised to Abraham their father, but the trouble was that He did not bother to tell the giants about it. They were not aware that the land really belonged to Israel.
It is your prerogative to go in and possess what God has for you; but first you must convince the usurpers that it is really yours. You cannot convince the usurpers that it is your land until you are convinced by God that it is your land.
And on the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten some of the produce of the land, so that the sons of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate some of the yield of the land of Canaan during that year.
The Passover experience speaks not only of your salvation, but of any fresh appropriation of the blood of Jesus Christ and of His provision by His sacrifice for you.
In a deep moment of repentance, you may call for the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse you from some impurity that you see, or to help you so that you can enter into a circumcision and leave some of the old life behind. When you do that, you can always be sure that everything will change for you.
If you really repent deeply, you will suddenly experience a change of diet, a change of enemies, a change of scenery.
The first step in achieving change is to come before the Lord in a true work of circumcision and of the Passover in your heart. From that time on, the changes can come to pass. God fed you in the wilderness, but now, as you keep a new Passover and are ready to serve the Lord, the manna stops. Suddenly, a little tearfully, you realize that some of your security is gone and you must say good-bye to the manna.
No one really knows what manna was anyway. The very word manna means, “What is it?” When it fell in the morning, the Israelites looked around and said, “Manna! Manna! What is it? What is it?” They never did figure out what it was.
I doubt if you really know how you are being fed either—whether it comes by osmosis as you walk among the brethren, or whether some of the sermons that you have heard and forgotten are finally starting to have an effect.
You do not really understand how you have grown. You read the Word and you pray, but that does not seem to explain it to you; but you know that you have been fed with manna.
Whatever your manna was, it is going to stop. You are going to eat the food of the land. First you must go to the granary of the giants and chase them away. Then you can take their grain, grind it, and make it into something tasty.
While you are eating, you can sit around and talk about how good the manna was; and yet, are you really ready for the change? Everything is going to be new in this hour—a new walk, a new diet, new aspects—but above everything else, there is going to be a completely new revelation of the Lord.
Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No, rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, “What has my lord to say to his servant?” And the captain of the Lord’s host said to Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.
The Lord reveals Himself to us in so many aspects that you could actually say that our God has a thousand faces. And He always comes to us in the way that we need Him to be revealed to us.
Just as he was ready to enter into battle, Joshua saw the man with the drawn sword. He asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” Since the days of Moses, when he saw the Lord face to face, the children of Israel had known no actual physical manifestations of the Lord.
This was the first time that the Lord revealed Himself to Joshua. Up to this time the Israelites had only seen the Lord’s presence in the pillar of fire, which provided an illumination system, as well as a heating system for the cold nights in the wilderness, and in the cloud which provided good air conditioning and shade from the heat of the sun during the day. The Lord was very good to them; He was their “sweet Jesus.” But what Joshua saw was not dear, sweet Jesus. The Lord was standing with a sword pointing right at him.
When you are a babe in the wilderness, it is enough to have only a representation of the Lord that leads you along. But if you would be like the young men whom John wrote about in 1 John 2:14, then the picture is different.
“I write to you young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one.” When sons are coming forth, you can no longer trot along behind a cloud. Now you are walking with the Captain of the hosts of Israel.
Your first encounter with Him leaves you a little bewildered. When He begins to chasten and discipline you, you feel like a soldier who is in training for the army.
A soldier wonders if there is anything worse than a top sergeant. He is sure that the sergeant does not like him at all, and he himself is not sure whom he hates more—the enemy or the sergeant. He probably hates the sergeant a little more because he has not yet encountered the enemy.
Like Joshua, he probably thinks, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” The Lord told Joshua, in effect, “Get one thing straight: I am the leader.” Joshua had voiced his faith; he had walked with God. But now there came this total absolute submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
The Lord chastens you and you serve Him. He commands you and you walk with Him. The way you were led in the wilderness is child’s play compared to the way you will have to be directed in the Holy Spirit when you come into the days of possessing your inheritance.
Crossing over the Jordan is a type of death. However, Jordan is not the symbol of physical death which some people think it is. They are waiting to die before they possess their inheritance. The crossing of Jordan does not portray any pie-in-the-sky idea, but rather the plundered spoil and the milk and honey which are just over the hill.
God is moving us away from the tendency to excuse ourselves as believers. A Fundamentalist says that he believes the Bible from cover to cover. He believes that it all happened just as it says. But does he believe it could happen today? No, to him the day of miracles is past. For a man to say that he believes the Bible and then to relegate it to some era in the past, and thus excuse himself for not having any faith in God today, is an abomination in the sight of God.
Crossing the Jordan is an experience in God, a breaking through to Him. After the Israelites had crossed the Jordan, they circumcised themselves, cutting away the reproach of Egypt. Circumcision is not something we look forward to happening in heaven. If there is going to be any circumcision, we want to get it over with now. What does Canaan represent? Canaan is a possessing of all the sweet promises of God that He is holding before His people in this generation. It is the present truths that He is making real.
Although the emphasis God is giving us today is on walking with Him, yet He is giving us more teaching in the Scriptures than we have ever had. The emphasis is not on doctrine; it is on the possession of truth and the walking in truth as it is being restored.
When you face the Lord with His drawn sword, it is a devastating experience, something that completely shakes your faith.
It can be a blessed experience to have the Lord appear to you, but it is also totally devastating. However, if you do not face that, you will never be able to walk around Jericho and bring it down. God must meet your heart in that way. You have to pass through that time when you are ready to walk with Him, ready to submit to Him, and ready to abandon everything else that would hinder you.
Standing in the Jordan valley, getting ready to go into battle, is not an easy time. The diet changes and the circumcision takes place. The preparation is made for you to become one of those who are going to live by the sword and enter into total spiritual warfare.
It is a devastating experience. Say good-bye to all the comforts, for they are symbolic of the wilderness. No more do you have a cloud to shelter you from the sun. Now you have to stand and command the sun to stand still until you get the job done. Everything is entirely different, and you will experience the Lord in a different measure.
Your diet will be different; now you are going to fight for what you eat. It is time for a greater manifestation in the churches than babies who are spoon-fed. It is time that you begin to scratch for your food.
God has anointed me to feed you the Word and to open the doors of the Kingdom. The Word will continue to come, but I do not think that the churches will really be what God wants them to be until they start taking food for themselves and feeding themselves.
It is not in the mind of the Lord that you keep eating the manna that tastes like wafers and honey. You need to go out and fight for the grain; then grind it up and make yourself a meal. It is healthy for you to go out and work for it.
I am anxious to see the days when the feasts and the convocations are not wholly dependent upon one person speaking the Word. I want to see the days when there will be a thousand brothers who can get up and speak the same Word: literally hundreds of men who can stand up and minister the word, Men whom God has met in such an outstanding way that they will walk in a double portion of everything that God has given the Father ministry. This has to be.
There can be no greater indication that a man’s life had no meaning than if it ends with himself. It can only have meaning when the anointing continues on and on. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 2:2, “The things which you have heard from me, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” They entered into the same dedication and into the same walk with God. They had something that went on and on because it was a living Word from God. If we cannot have that, then there is nothing that is really worth preserving.
We all need to say, “Good-bye wilderness. Good-bye manna. We enjoyed you, but now we must say good-bye.” Then we say, “Hello, giants. Hello, Captain with a drawn sword. We greet the new day.
We no longer think old-order thoughts about the promises being afar off. We are ready now to walk in them.”
Hebrews 11 speaks of the prophets and the men of God. Some of them died in the faith without receiving the promises, but they embraced them and saw them from afar off. They confessed that they were pilgrims and strangers upon the earth, and God was not ashamed of them.
They never had the privilege we have. We do not greet the promises afar off. We are walking in them. We are not looking for a day to come; we are already in it.
Take a look! You are already standing on the path. You have had a revelation of the coming King. You are already walking by the principles of the Kingdom. The Lordship of Christ over your life is becoming a reality.
I would not want to be dogmatic concerning the exact time that the manifestation of the Kingdom is to take place over the whole world. That is irrelevant. However, we need to face the fact that we are God’s remnant that has already entered into the Kingdom day. By faith we have entered into a new day. Other people are talking and writing books about the last days because they are in the last days. We do not want to go back to those last days. We are in a new day.
God deals differently with us than with the denominational Christian. The entire pattern of God’s dealings is different.
Anyone who comes into a real walk with God finds that he is living in an entirely different dispensation.
Right at this transition period, there is an overlapping. God has granted us the greatest privilege that He could give any people. You can either wander in the wilderness, or you can move into Canaan and possess it.
Are you afraid that you might get hurt? I would rather live in momentary jeopardy fighting the Canaanites than to live in the boredom of the wilderness. All that you have to face in the wilderness are a few miserable circumstances, and most of the time those circumstances cause you to grumble.
You can have your choice: either fight circumstances and murmur about the wilderness and how you hate it, or get out of it completely. If you want the wilderness to defeat you, just murmur about it. You will end up somewhere in the wilderness with your bones bleaching in the sun. I would rather go in and tackle the giants now.
You may complain that it is too expensive. You are right—to follow the Lamb, you have to renounce everything. You cannot even love your own life. This is total discipleship.
Perhaps you are wondering whether you are prepared for all of that. I am—like Moses, who had respect toward the recompense of the reward (Hebrews 11:26).
Anything we can give is little compared to everything that God has promised. Let us live recklessly and fearlessly as we continually greet the new day and say good-bye to the level we were on. With mingled emotions I am welcoming the changes that have to come in the expansion of the Kingdom of God. I want to shout, but the shout is with tears: “Thy Kingdom come, O Lord; Thy Kingdom come!”