Ron Dunn Podcast - The Flow Of Gods Power Obedience

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

Ron Dunn speaks on obedience in his series "Life Of Victory"

I want us to take one last look at Joshua chapter 3, and anybody that can't find it, we're going to send you right out. Surely you know where that is by now. I'll give you a hint, it's in the Old Testament. One last look at the third chapter of Joshua. And we're going to read verses 9 through 13. And before I read these verses, let's bow our heads for a moment, asking God to take his word tonight and bless it to our own lives. Heavenly Father, we're thankful for the blessings of this day, for the tokens that we have received from Thee of Your love and Your power and Your presence.

We thank Thee, Father, again tonight for the privilege that is ours to gather together as Your children and to worship Thee and to study Your Word. We're thankful for the book that you've given us, and we have absolute confidence that what we hold in our hands tonight is the word of God. And we're thankful for the blessed Holy Spirit who not only inspired it but indwells us tonight to interpret it to our own spirits and our own hearts. We are thankful for that divine illumination that comes to us, that even though we are

not able to comprehend and understand everything that is written, yet we are able to understand that which is necessary for us to obey you and to become the people of God that you have purposed us to be. And so, Father, we simply tonight ask that you'll minister to us through your Word and through the Holy Spirit. May we see Jesus in it all, and may we be drawn into a closer and more real fellowship with him tonight as a result of our study together. And so we commit this hour to thee and pray that you'll sanctify it by your spirit and by your purpose. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

The book of Joshua, chapter 3, verses 9 through 13. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the Lord your God. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the H Canaanites and the Hittites and the Hivites and the Perizzites and the Gagashites and the Amorites and the Jebusites.

Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above, and they shall stand

upon a heap. The rest of that chapter tells that the people did exactly as God commanded, and that God did just exactly as he promised. And so we have the last verse, 17, And the priests that bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground until all the people were passed clean over Jordan. Now, last Sunday morning and this morning, we've been talking about the release of God's power in the lives of His people, the things that determine that release in your life and in my life.

And we've seen that there are two things so far, and both of these things we have no control over. They are fixed in eternity and fixed by God. And I have no control over that. There's not anything I can do about it. That is something that simply belongs to God. He has never called me in for consultation. He has yet to ask my advice about anything that regards His purpose or His timing. He simply reveals to me His purpose and tries to reveal

to me His timing when I am open to receive that revelation, and I can merely accept it or reject it. But I have no control over the flow of God's power as it relates to these two things. It flows in the direction of His purpose, His eternal purpose. That is fixed. There is nothing I can do to change it. I have no part in that except simply to accept it and fit my life into it. It also flows, as we've seen, according to God's timing, not my timing. I was thinking this

afternoon, I wonder if Joshua and Caleb ever became impatient. You know, 40 years before, they were ready to go on over and possess the land. The only thing that held them back was the unbelief of the majority of those 12 spies. And I can imagine that Joshua and Caleb at times became very anxious and very impatient as they realized they were having to spend 40 years wandering in the desert, not because of their unbelief, not because of their disobedience. They were ready to go on in, but because of the unbelief and disobedience of others. But God has his timing, and there's not anything we can do about that except fit into it. But there is a third thing that determines the flow of God's power, and this is where

your responsibility and mine comes in. I can do something about this because it is so that we can have the purpose of God and the timing of God. But if we fail at this last point, then we will not experience the flow of God's power in our lives. The power of God flows through our obedience. And so you have these three things. The purpose of God, the timing of God, and the obedience of God's people. The obedience of God's people. God's purpose is that his people cross over Jordan and move into victory. His timing is now.

After 40 years of wandering. Tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. Now I'm ready, what are you going to do? And so you have this word that God comes and first of all He commands Joshua. And you see here a beautiful picture of the chain of command. First of all God commands Joshua, and then Joshua calls the officers, and he commands them. And then the officers pass through the hosts of the people, and they command the people. And so the Word of God passes, filters on down. It is the responsibility now of the people to obey.

And so this is the third and the final thing that I believe determines the release of God's power in my life, my obedience. And the exercise of God's power on my behalf is regulated by my submission to His will. The exercise of God's power on my behalf is regulated by my submission to His will. Tomorrow's wonders are determined by today's obedience. And if I'll just take care of today's obedience, the Lord will take care of tomorrow's obstacles. God didn't tell them to worry about the Jordan River. That was not their concern. They had only one concern, and that was simply to be obedient. I like that because it means the Christian life is really simple. We try to make it complicated,

and we have somewhat succeeded in complicating the Christian life. But when you boil it all down, I have only one thing to concern myself about. That's not the Jordan River. That's not the Canaanites or the Hivites or the Perizzites. God said he would take care of those. God said he would roll back the waters of the Jordan River. God said he would drive out the parasites. God said he would take care of those. God said he would roll back the waters of the Jordan River. God said he would drive out the enemy. Those obstacles that I'll face tomorrow

are not to be my concern. My only concern is today's obedience. And as I respond accurately to the obedience that God demands of me today, I have his assurance that he will move out the obstacles that I'll meet tomorrow. I find this to be true over and over again, as these people did. And so he comes to them and says, When you see the ark of the Lord of the covenant, the ark of the covenant of the Lord moving out, the priests bearing it, you'll go after them. They're going to stand in the middle of Jordan, and they'll stay there, and the waters will be rolled back,

and you'll cross on dry ground. The Lord God commanded the people, when you see the ark, you follow it. And their obedience was the final ingredient in causing the power of God to be released in their life. But what is obedience? What is obedience? I believe that obedience is nothing more nor less than trust expressing itself. I do not think you can have obedience without faith. It seems to me that faith is the parent of obedience and that obedience must always issue from

a confident and restful trust in the one who is giving you the commands. You see, it is almost impossible for me to be consistently obedient to one that I do not trust. But if there is one that I have absolute confidence in, and I have committed to him the trust of my heart, I find it relatively easy to obey without arguing, without fighting, without hesitating. Because as I trust this person, as I have confidence in his power, in his wisdom, obedience comes naturally and comes easily.

And I would not be surprised to discover in my own heart that those times when I have refused to be obedient to the Lord, it is really because I have just not trusted the Lord's wisdom and trusted the Lord's power to bring about that which is promised. Because when God says one thing, I may have a different idea, and I may think that my idea is better, and I may feel that my idea seems more logical, more reasonable. To me, it seems more reasonable, and it seems to me to be the epitome of unreason and illogic to simply do exactly what God says. It might have seemed unreasonable to the people when God said, you're going to cross Jordan on dry ground. Well, it's one thing to cross Jordan, but it's another thing to cross it on dry

ground. But that was exactly what God said. And they could not have obeyed the Lord unless they had had confidence and trust in that Lord. And so the thing that Joshua must establish and the thing that God must establish before his people will obey, he must establish their faith in himself. Now, I want to tell you that God will never ask you to obey him without knowing who he is and what he is able to do. And throughout the Word of God, the Lord is constantly revealing himself and revealing his power, revealing his character. Why is he doing that? Because faith is no stronger than its object. And the only thing that makes faith valid is the object.

It's not the amount of faith a person has. It's what you do with that faith. It's not the amount of faith a person has. It's what you do with that faith. It's where you place that faith. That's why Jesus asked his disciples, Where is your faith? You have faith, but where is it? Where have you placed your faith? And the great problem for us is where are we going to place our faith?

And so I cannot place my faith in someone that I do not know and that I am not convinced of as far as his power and his integrity are concerned. And what God is doing throughout the Word is revealing himself to us. It is only as God reveals himself to us that we're able to trust him. The song is correct, trust and obey, for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus than except by trusting and obeying. And those two steps, you trust and you obey, you trust and you obey, and that's the way the Christian life is to be lived in its fullness, by trusting and obeying.

And I think the hymn writer was correct in putting trust first. You cannot obey unless there is trust. There are three phrases that occur in this third chapter that call forth faith and trust on the part of God's people. And I want to share these with you tonight and discuss them for a few moments. The first phrase is found in verse 11, and again it is found in verse 13, "'Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan.' And then verse 13, "'And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord,

the Lord of all the earth shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off. Now, the phrase that occurs twice, once in verse 11 and once in verse 13, that I want to call your attention to is this phrase, the Lord of all the earth, the Lord of all the earth. Now, you'll find that phrase occurring several times in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, and always it is found in the context similar to what we're discussing tonight. And it is this phrase, first of all, that calls forth our faith as well as our obedience? Who is it that we're being asked to obey? Who is it that commands us? Who is it that asks us to do this unbelievable,

unreasonable, ridiculous thing? Who is it that is asking us to risk our lives by walking through the waters of Jordan? It may be that I can stand on the brink after a bunch of people have already crossed and I see that they've gotten across safely and I see the waters backed up like gigantic walls. But knowing my luck, about the time I get halfway in the middle, something's going to happen and those walls will come tumbling down.

I know how things have been going for me these past few years and it'll just be my good fortune that everybody else may get across, but by the time I get right there in the middle of Jordan, something's going to happen. I want to know who is it that's asking me to do such a hazardous and riskless thing. Well, he says, it is the Lord of all the earth. And I think it's significant that he repeats it. He is the Lord of all the earth. Now, that phrase indicates the government of God.

The government of God. He is the Lord of all the earth. Now, I want you to see a difference. It's brought out in your King James if you'll look very closely. I want you to notice in verse 13, they that bear the ark of the Lord, and you notice that the word Lord is in capital letters, L-O-R-D, all in capital letters. Now notice the next phrase, the Lord of all the earth. Notice that word translated Lord has only a capital L

and the rest of the letters are in small letters. Now, that's very significant. The word Lord that you find first, the ark of the Lord, is a translation of the Hebrew word Jehovah or Yahweh. It's his covenant name. It means the God who enters into a covenant with us. And the way the King James makes the distinction between those two Hebrew words, even though they translate them by the same English,

the way they distinguish between the two Hebrew words is by putting one in capital letters and one just in regular lettering. But the word he uses for the Lord of all the earth is the word that you and I would commonly associate with Lord, ruler, sovereign, governor. It indicates his sovereign control. The first word, Lord, indicates his covenant, his love, his mercy, his grace.

When Adam and Eve sinned against God, if you'll read in the first chapters of Genesis, you'll find that when it describes God and His creative power, it simply says God created the heavens and the earth. And God spoke and dry land appeared. But after man had fallen and entered into sin, and God came seeking him, it says, and the Lord God came and the Lord God said.

And the Spirit of God unites that word God, the God of power, with the God of grace, and it is the Lord God that comes seeking man in his fallen state. And so you see the marvelous inspiration of the Scripture, even in the titles that are selected to describe God. And when it comes to this phrase, the Lord of all the earth, the Holy Spirit uses that word that indicates His sovereign control. He is the governor of all the earth. He not only created it as God, but He also controls it as Lord.

Now, this phrase means that God has the right and the power to use and dispose of nations and creatures. He has the right to command, to create, and to control. It means that He is the Lord of nature. He's the Lord of creation. It's all under His control. And you see, that makes all the difference. That makes all the difference. I want to know who it is that's asking me to walk across Jordan, who it is

that's asking me to risk my life in this endeavor. And the answer comes, it is the Lord of all the earth. It is the Lord of the earth, the creation. It is that one who controls and holds in his governmental power the control of waters and winds and all of the forces of nature. Well, that makes a difference. Thank you. I was just asking. Now that I know who it is, it's easier for me to obey. Now I can obey because I know that the one who is commanding me to obey is the one who can guarantee that my obedience will be possible, and that's very important. You see, the interesting and significant thing is that God commands us to do something,

and as Lord, he can guarantee that our obedience will be possible. You see, what God is commanding the people to do is to walk across the Jordan River on dry land. Well, Lord, it's easy for you to command me to do that, but where am I going to get the power? Where am I going to get the wherewithal to do it? And God comes back and says, listen, I'm the one who commands, and I'm the one who makes obedience to that command possible. Well, thank you, Lord. I believe I can obey now.

And I believe I can trust you now. And this is the one thing that is essential for us to remember. God never guides where he does not provide. And if God tells you to cross over a overflowing Jordan River, it simply means that God is going to work some wonder on your behalf that's going to make it possible to do so, you see. And if God is asking you to do something and commanding you to do something, regardless of how impossible that may look,

from your viewpoint, he is the Lord of all the earth, and that simply means that He is able to make certain that your obedience can be performed. So the first thing is this. It is the God who is the Lord of all the earth. The second phrase is found in verse 10. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you. He's not only the Lord God, he's also the living God.

That the living God is among you. This is the second phrase that makes it possible for me to trust and obey. Because the God that I am following is a living God. Now, what does this mean? What is the significance of this? Of course, primarily what he is doing is contrasting himself with the dead gods of the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hittites. They can't do anything for their people. But he said, you shall know this day, and that's extremely important, you shall know this day that the living God is among you. That means two things. First of all, it means that we have God's presence.

He says the living God is among you. Because he is a living God, this means that God is aware of the situation. I'm glad of that. There have been times when we wonder if God is aware of what's going on, especially in those dark hours of prayer where there is no immediate answer. I feel that perhaps Mary and Martha had an idea that Jesus might be ignorant of the situation. Maybe he didn't know how sick Lazarus was. But when he is designated as the living God, it means that he is present in his awareness of what's going on,

that he's right here with us, he's alive. He's not some dead deity that we pray to. He's not some statue stuck on a wall. He's not some wooden figure carved out by man. But he is a living God. And when he called Moses, he identified himself as the living God. He said, I'm the God of your father. I'm the God of Abraham, of Isaac.

I am the living God. And every time he would reveal himself to a man, he always revealed himself as the God who was alive. This simply meant that he was present with us, that he was aware of the situation and active in that situation. You see, there are a number of times when he compares himself to the other gods, and he says those gods cannot hear, they cannot help, they cannot feel. And especially in Isaiah, as Isaiah the prophet compares our God with the other gods of this world,

he compares them like this, that they serve gods who cannot hear and who cannot speak and who cannot feel. In other words, their god cannot enter into sympathy with their situation. Their god cannot empathize with them. Their god cannot feel along with them. And yet Isaiah can say of our Lord in all of their afflictions, the Lord also was afflicted. We can say of our Lord, he was tempted in all points such as we are, yet without sin.'" He is a living God.

That simply means he's with us, present with us, aware of the situation. He knows what's going on, and he's alive to do something about it. But there's another thing that it means. It not only means that God is present with us, but it means he'll prove that he's present. He'll prove that he's here. He'll prove that he's here. Look again at that tenth verse, and Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you. He said, Not only is the living God going to be among you, but you're going to know it. If you'll go back up into verse 7, the Lord said unto Joshua, This day will I begin

to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. The significance of that phrase, the living God, means that he will prove himself to be alive. He will prove himself to be present with us. He said, this day shall you know that the living God is among you. Now, I'm not saying that you and I are to be sign seekers and miracle mongers and always asking God to prove his existence. But I want to tell you something. God will prove his presence in your life. As you and I trust and obey, trust and obey,

walk in absolute confidence in his power and his wisdom, as we obey and submit ourselves to his will, I want you to know God is going to prove to you his presence in your life. It would be edifying, I think, if we had the time tonight to just let various ones stand up and testify how God has proved his presence in your life. He does it by some remarkable ways. He says, I'm going to drive out the enemy, I'm going to work wonders, so you'll know that I'm with you.

Now, there are times when God asks us just to move on blind faith, but you know the Bible says that he knows our frame, he remembers that we're dust, he's a father that pities his children. And just as any human father will at times do things to let his children know that he loves them, it would be unnatural for a father to say, Well, I love my children, I love my family.

There's no use in my ever demonstrating or showing it. There are times when our Heavenly Father will bend down low and will do something just to let us know He's here, just to let us know he's present, just to let us know that he's alive and he's working in our lives. And as God gives us these evidences, they increase our faith and many times will cause a sinking faith to rise to the surface so that we can obey the Lord. All right, there's one last phrase that I want to call your attention to. This phrase occurs ten times in this third chapter of Joshua. It is the phrase, the ark of a covenant of the Lord.

You'll find it in verse 3, the priests that bear the ark of the Lord. And as I said, it occurs ten times. Sometimes it's called the ark of the Lord. And as I said, it occurs ten times. Sometimes it's called the ark of the Lord. Sometimes it's called the ark of the covenant. Other places it is called the ark of testimony. Inside this ark were the two tablets of testimony, the two tablets of law. Now, the significant thing is that the ark signifies that this God that commands us is a

loving God, a saving God, a God of grace. The ark of the covenant. Our God is a covenant God. I doubt if you and I have ever really understood completely the impact of that phrase, He is a covenant God. Do you know what it means to say that God is a covenant God? You mean to tell me that the Lord of all the earth who doesn't need me, who is not benefited by what I can do for Him, who is not increased by what I can do for him, who is not increased by what I have, who is not made more wise by what I can offer him, who is not made richer by what I can give him, who is not made stronger by what I can do

for him? Do you mean the Lord of all the earth will bow himself down to enter into a covenant with me? You know what a covenant was? The covenant was simply this. God was saying to the people of Israel, if you will obey me, acknowledge me to be your Lord, I bind myself to you.

I will bind myself to you. I will obligate myself to you. I will enter into a covenant with you. And as long as you obey me and acknowledge me to be your Lord, I will be responsible for you. You become my responsibility. I bind myself to you by my own word which cannot fail and which cannot lie and Jesus comes as he sits down with his disciples and he says this cup is the

blood of the New Testament that's the New Testament way of saying covenant literally Jesus is saying this is the blood of the new covenant and what the Lord Jesus Christ is saying is this. He said, I am entering into a covenant with you and I'm sealing it with my blood. And what I'm saying is this. I am binding myself to you. I am causing you to become my people,

my responsibility, and I become obligated for you and responsible for you. You are my people. I am your Lord, and I cover this and I become obligated for you and responsible for you you are my people I am your Lord and I Cover this and I seal this with my blood. This blood is the blood of the New Covenant And so again and again and again ten times they say the art of the Lord are the art of the covenant. That's what we're to follow. We're to follow a God who loves us so much that he has bound himself to us in a covenant relationship that cannot be broken. And so, binding himself to us, he throws all his resources, all the resources of that Lord,

he throws into us. And you know what that simply means? That means that everything in this world serves me as long as I'm serving the Lord. Everything in this world becomes my servant as long as I remain the servant of the Lord. The waters of Jordan became the servant of the people of Israel. Why? Because they were the servant of a covenant God. They entered into a covenant. They said, we will acknowledge you to be our Lord. We will obey you.

And as long as we do that, as long as we keep the terms of that covenant, God will continually move and act in our behalf. That's his promise. And so you find that the whole world, every part of God's creation, every situation, every circumstance becomes simply your servant to carry you into that land of promise simply because you become the servant of God. And so this is why it's easy to obey God once you know who he is,

once you know who he is. The reason you find it difficult to trust God and obey God is because you don't really know him. And if you get to know God, who he is, and get to experience God and come to know him, you'll be able to trust him. I remember several years ago, some folks in this church, and we went up to Colorado together. It was not in the dead of winter, but it stays winter up there a lot longer than it stays winter down here.

And we were in a certain area where there were about a dozen little trout lakes, and they were all frozen over. And somebody made the suggestion that I get out there and walk, be my only chance to ever walk on the water, and go out there and walk across that lake. And they said, man, they ice skate on this lake all winter long. Well, now, from where I was born and brought up and where I live, there's never any lake that you can ice skate across. It may ice over, but it's thin ice. And they said, that's all right.

Go on out there. Everybody does it. Well, I didn't see anybody doing it. And so I got out there on that ice, but I stayed about this close to the bank, you know, in case something happened. I could have swam that far, and I'm sure of that. And I didn't enjoy it at all. I didn't enjoy walking on that ice at all, because I just didn't know at what moment that ice may break, and I'd be plunged into that icy water.

Well, after a while, we got back in the car, and we were driving back, and we passed by another one of these lakes. And I looked out there, and you know what I saw right in the middle of the lake? I saw a fellow sitting on an orange crate of some sort. He had cut a hole in the ice, and he was fishing, just sitting out there in the middle of the lake on that ice. And he's fishing. I thought to myself, now there is a lesson somewhere if I can just find it. You know, I thought about that, and I began to ask some questions of myself. I said, now, was I any less safe on the ice than that man was? No. Was I any less secure?

No. I didn't have any faith in that ice. That man had faith in the ice, but the ice held us both up. I had to admit that it's not faith that holds us up. I didn't have any faith. That's why I stayed this close to shore, but I still was held up by the ice. That man had absolute faith in the ice. That's why he's sitting right out there in the smack dab center of that thing.

It wasn't his faith that held him up. It was the object of his faith. The ice was just as strong to me as it was to him, but he was enjoying it and I wasn't. You know what it was? That man lived around there. He knew that ice. He knew that ice. For the years he had grown familiar with the ice.

He knew how thick it was, he knew how secure it was, he knew how safe it was. My problem was I was a stranger to the ice. I didn't know it, and so I couldn't trust it. It wasn't my little faith that held me up, it was the ice that held me up. And the only reason I couldn't get out there in the middle and feel at rest was because I was ignorant of the ice. It's the same way with trusting God. It's not your trust that holds you, it's God that holds you.

And the only thing that keeps you from being able to get out in the middle with God and really trust Him and launch out and enjoy it without being uptight and nervous about tomorrow's obstacles is the fact you don't know God. You're a stranger to him, or you have a nodding acquaintance. You met him several years ago in a saving experience, but you've not met with him much. There's not too much you know about him. And so it's very difficult for you to commit yourself to him out there in the depths,

out there in the middle. But the more you get to know of God and you become familiar with him in fellowship and walking with him, you discover something. You discover your faith just by consequence of that relationship grows and grows and grows. And you discover that as your knowledge of God increases, your ability to trust increases, and your ability to obey without question increases. God's power on my behalf is regulated by my obedience to him. And my obedience is determined by my faith, and my faith is determined by my knowledge of God.

So where do we start? Well, we start with knowing who God is, that he is the Lord of all the earth, that he is alive, and that he is a covenant God who loves us and has bound himself to us by the blood of his Son. Now let's pray together. The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated,

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