Ron Dunn Podcast - Walking On Conquered Ground Part 2

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

Ron Dunn gives the part 2 of his sermon Walking On Conquered Ground

Now I'd like you to open your Bibles again tonight to the book of Joshua, chapter 1. We're going to read the same passage that we read this morning, Joshua, chapter 1, verses 1 through 9. Joshua, chapter 1, verses 1 through 9. I have become extremely fascinated by this book in the past few months, because as I said earlier, in the book of Joshua you have God illustrating the Christian life. I'm so glad that God makes it simple, makes it clear, makes it plain. And everything that happens, it's as though God is staging a drama and drawing pictures and using images to try to convey to us all that it means to be saved and to walk in the Spirit.

And this book of Joshua is an exciting book because it really gives to us God's way into victory, God's method of entering into the fullness of our salvation. Joshua chapter 1. We'll begin reading with the first verse and read through the ninth. Now, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord

spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given you, as I said unto Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river of the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.

There shall not any man be able to stand against thee all the days of thy life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage, for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever

thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage. Be not afraid, neither

be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest." One thing that strikes me as I come to know more and more of the character of God. Once putting his hand to the plow, he never looks back. God in his infinite wisdom has a plan for every life. He has a plan and a purpose for his people. And you can never discourage God from that plan. You can never convince God to abandon that plan. God will never alter nor abandon his original purpose for his people.

I suppose this is one reason the illustration of the potter and the clay in Jeremiah 18 means so much to me, because it in such a tremendous way pictures the invincible purpose of God. As the clay is marred in the potter's hand, the potter simply makes it over again, another vessel as seemeth good to the potter to make it. He doesn't cast it away. He does not abandon it.

He simply starts all over again. This is one of the things that, as I said, strikes me as I read these opening words of Joshua. These are the very same words that God spoke to his people 40 years before. God hasn't changed. You know, I've had this experience, and I'm sure you have, that there have been times when God has spoken to me and he says, now I want you to do such and so.

But I have rebelled against it, I have neglected it, I have disobeyed it, and time has passed. And after I get enough of my disobedience and I've come to the point of desperation, I come back to the Lord and I find that God wants to take up with me again right where he left off. He hasn't changed his mind about anything. He hasn't altered his plan. And that point of obedience that I strayed from maybe years before,

I come back, God still at the same place waiting for me to obey. I think there are times when you and I pray and wait, hoping that God may change his mind. And sometimes we try to bargain with the Lord and barter with him. I get the idea that we have sometimes this thought that maybe we can so put pressure on the Lord that he might make an exception in our case. And yet, as God comes to Joshua in a new day, a new plateau, a whole new age, a new chapter in the book, God's saying the same thing he said 40 years before. What he's saying to this people is, people, you've got it to do.

I told you 40 years ago you were going over this Jordan, and you're still going over it. You have got it to do, and God has the same word and the same message. God has a plan, and that plan, that purpose is that he gets all of us out of the wilderness and over into the land of promise, into that land flowing with milk and honey, which is the Old Testament way of expressing having abundance in the Lord Jesus Christ. God never offers that plan. God never changes his plan. This is what God wanted for the people then. It's what God wants for you. We've been talking about how we move into this. And as I said this morning, the key to the whole business is how you and I respond to the promise of God. And there are three responses that we must make if we are to walk on conquered ground,

if we are to realize in our own experience all that God wants us to realize. The first one, as we have already seen, is that you and I must personally accept God's promise. And by that, I simply mean that there has to come this realization that what God is saying in this book is not ancient history, but it is a fresh command from God that if I were the only person in all the world, God would still have said this. And he said it to me, and he means this for me, and he wants this for me. I remember a time in my own Christian life when suddenly one day as I was reading the Scripture, a new something—I really don't know what to describe it—but a new something

gripped me, and all of a sudden I said to myself, that is for me. And when I said that, this is for me, suddenly the Bible became very practical. The Bible became very applicable. It became very relevant. And I found that God has intended for me to take the principles and precepts of this book and to regulate my life by them. So the first response that you and I are going to have to make if we are going to walk with

the Lord in fellowship and in continuing victory is we are going to have to accept God's promise as for us personally, to see it personally for us. I was reading just this past week where Jesus said, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and life. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, not bound by time or space. They are spirit, not limited to time, not limited to space. They are spirit, they are eternal. And he says, the words that I speak unto you are life. They give life. And when a man takes the word of God seriously, not just literally, but takes the word of God seriously and begins to regulate and order his life by what God has said, he discovers

a new life. Those words become life. And he sees God move into his life, not just in the in the religious category of his life, but in every facet of his life. God begins to minister the life, the life of Jesus. He said, my words are spirit and life. First proper response is to accept God's promise personally, for me. This is for me. God is saying this to me. Now, the second one follows upon the first. If we ever come to the place where we say, God wrote this especially for me.

This is a personal word to me from the Lord. It just naturally follows that there will be an abiding in the promises of God. This is the second and essential response that we are to make. There must be a perpetual, a parental, a continual abiding in the promises of God. Notice what he says in the seventh and eighth verses. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. By the way, the word prosper has the idea of doing wisely. Here this word is not referring to financial prosperity as much as it is referring to being wise, and the decisions that

you make are right decisions or wise decisions. The idea of real prosperity comes down in the eighth verse when he uses the word of having good success. But he says, if you will do this, you'll be able to act wisely wherever you go, acting wisely wherever you go. Then the eighth verse, This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.

For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success." Now God is saying to Joshua, Joshua, it's not enough for you to hear my word and believe it and accept it. He says you must abide in it. You must not allow this word to depart out of your mouth. That's how close you are to stay to it. You're to meditate on it day and night. You are to observe all that Moses in the book of the law has commanded you to do. You're not to turn from it to the right.

You're not to turn from it to the right. You're not to turn from it from the left. God is trying to say the word of God must be placed first above everything else in your life. The word of God must be placed first above everything else in your life. You see, God is trying to convey here a sense of supremacy to the word of God. I think it is significant that he describes it

in both verses 7 and 8 as the law, the law, the law, that word of authority, that word that binds us. He may be saying something like this, now Joshua, you may be the leader, but he said, I want you to know that the word of the law is still above you. And you're not to compromise any word of it. You're not to turn from it to the right. You're not to turn to the left. You see, as you and I begin to walk with the Lord, and I want to emphasize this again and again, as you and I begin to walk with the Lord, it doesn't mean that it's going to be

all honey and no bees, no work and all ease. It doesn't mean a life free from conflict and struggle. As a matter of fact, the book of Joshua was one of the most violent books in the Bible. It's one of the bloodiest books in the Bible. And as the people crossed over the Jordan River, their conflict was only beginning. If they thought the Jordan River at flood tide was an obstacle, they hadn't seen anything yet. And God made it clear, God made it clear that when they went into the land, they were going to be enemies. And I emphasize this because hardly a week passes, but I don't talk with somebody that somehow has had this idea conveyed to them that to make a decision to walk with

the Lord or to bring your life under the Lordship of Jesus somehow means that you're going to have blue skies and the wind at your back, you know, and everybody's going to speak well of you and all the ground is going to be level. There's not going to be any mountains to climb over, no problems, no conflicts. Oh, isn't that a laugh. I wrote something some time ago. I think the Lord gave it to me in a time when I personally needed it. And I have found myself going back and just reading it over and over again. And the statement is this,

that after a man or any believer commits himself unreservedly to the Lord, the Lord will give him problems that he could not have handled before. That with a new walk with the Lord comes a new level of conflict, that God allows certain things to come upon a person that they could not have taken, they could not have stood before. As you study the account of Israel as it wanders in the wilderness, you come across this truth, that from the day they turned back at Cades Barnea, that day of disobedience, 40 years previously, and they began to walk and wander in the wilderness of disobedience, they never had any conflict except with themselves. There was no warfare. There was no battling of the enemy.

There was no conflict except with themselves and with the Lord. But as far as fighting the outside enemy, there was none. But the very minute they get back in line with the will of God, that very moment then, God begins to give them problems

that before they could not have handled. And what God is saying to Joshua is this, listen, you're going to have times of conflict, there are going to be times of confusion, and you're going to have to place the Word of God first in your life. You're going to have to stick close to the Word of God because you're going to need a stabilizing influence in your life. You're the leader and the Word of God must not depart from your mouth.

You must meditate on it day and night, because there are going to be times of conflict when your faith needs to be shored up, and only the word of God can do that. And he goes on to say, if you will do this, if you will place it first, not allow it to depart from your mouth, if you will not compromise any of the word of God, he says, I promise you this, when you have a decision to make, you'll act wisely.

You'll act wisely. He's saying the word of God must be placed first. Notice what he says in the eighth verse. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. Now, he's saying here that the word of God must first of all be the source of all our speaking. In other words, our communication must be directed, regulated by the word of God. It shall not depart from thy mouth. I think what he's saying to Joshua is,

Joshua, I don't want you coming up with any new orders. I don't want you trying to think up a better way to do it. I don't want you trying to devise or engineer a better way of living the Christian life. He said, I want the Word of God to stay in your mouth, and when you speak to the people and give them orders, I want it simply to be the old Word of God, the truth, the truth. I think the greatest cure for error is not letting this book depart out of our mouth. God knows what he's saying to Joshua.

He said, Joshua, you're going to meet a new set of problems you've never met before. You've been brought up over here in the wilderness. You've never seen the like of what you're going to see. And he said, I don't want the word of God to part out of your mouth. I don't want you coming up with your ideas of how you think the life ought to be lived. He said, you make certain that everything you speak, you speak the word of God. You speak the word of God. And there's no greater need in the pulpits of this country today than men speaking the word of God, not coming up with new ideas.

Dialogue is a real big thing today. And, you know, there's a lot of pressure. You may not be aware of this, but there's a great deal of pressure on preachers today to stop preaching and to enter into what they call dialogue. You know, in other words, I'm not to stand up here and hide behind this pulpit, but what I ought to do is just drag up a chair, and let's just talk about it, and you ask questions and anything you want to ask. Now, I believe there's a place and time for dialogue.

I think most of the time it's the pooling of ignorance. Let's all get together and pool what we do not know. But you may not be aware of it, but there is a tremendous amount of pressure today on the pulpit to put the pulpit over to the side and to stop preaching from the Word. And the amazing thing is, the amazing stupidity of the human race

is that is why we're in a mess we're in today. You see, if Christians are the light of the world, then who's to blame for all the darkness? If Christians are the salt of the earth, then who's to blame for all the corruption? You can't lay the blame at anybody else's door, but the door of the believer. It's not the gambling crowd. It's not the liquor crowd. It's God's crowd. It's because we have not followed the word that God spoke to Joshua. Don't let the word depart out of thy mouth. It must be placed first in every part of our life. It is to be the source

of all of our speaking, but not only that, it's to be the subject of our thinking. He says in the eighth verse, and thou shalt meditate therein day and night. Meditate in it day and night. The Hebrew word meditate has the idea of humming. Have you ever had a tune on your mind that you just can't get off and it just stays with you all the time? It may be some little silly commercial jingle

you heard on television and you'd give up. You'd give your $1,000, you'd get that silly thing off your mind, but somehow or another it's on your mind, and you find yourself a dozen times a day humming that little tune, humming that little jingle. It obsesses you and permeates everything you say and do. He's saying, let the Word of God, not only depart out of your mouth,

but he said, let it be the subject of your thinking. You muse on it like humming a tune day and night, day and night, day and night. Meditate on it. Meditate on it day and night. In other words, let the Word of God become a part of your life. Absorb it into your system. And he says, when you do this, you'll be able to act wisely. You'll be able to act wisely.

I have found this, and I've had many, many Christians relate to me this unusual experience that as they had hidden the Word of God in their heart, and suddenly they come upon a situation or a decision, a confrontation, God gave them unbelievable wisdom, would call back to their remembrance things that they didn't even know they had remembered. God would give them a word, would give them just the right thing to say at the right time, allowing them to speak wisely and speak a word of grace to those people. And if you and I are going to walk on conquered ground, he says you must abide in the word, abide in the word. Now let me move to the last thing. The third and last response that must be made if we are to walk in fullness with the Lord

is we must not only accept God's promise as our own, we must not only abide in those promises, meditating on them day and night, musing over them until they become a very part of our being, but it must not stop there. Just recently I had someone come and say that they had been reading the Word, they had started a quiet time, they had even been memorizing Scripture, but they said, nothing's been happening. There's no difference. There's no difference at all. And after talking with them a little bit further,

I discovered they had forgotten one thing. It's not enough to accept it as God's Word to you. It's not enough to abide in it, meditate on it, memorize it and hide it in your heart. The third thing you must do is you must act upon it. You must act upon it. Look at the eighth verse. He says,

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. Now, why meditate in it? Why meditate in the Word? In order that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous. When will your way be prosperous?

When you do what you've been meditating on. You see, the whole purpose of meditating on the Word is that you might observe to do it. He says the same in the seventh verse. Only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law. All the law.

We are to act upon the promises of God and we're to act upon them perfectly and completely. There's no other reason for hiding the word in your heart except that you might do it. You might obey it. You may act upon it. Now, God may lead you to the shores of the promised land, but you're going to have to walk across yourself.

God may lead you to the fountain of living waters, but you're going to have to drink yourself. God may spread before you a banqueting table, but you're going to have to eat. He won't spoon feed you. He won't force you to drink. He won't pick you up and carry you across that Jordan. He may part the waters back, remove all the obstacles, but you're going to have to do the walking. You're going to have to ask upon it. Now, this requires two things. First of all, it requires our cooperation.

The victorious life is a united effort, is a cooperative effort. You say, I thought it was all of God. It is. It's all of God, But you must do something yourself. I was reading this the other night, and I noticed this particular point. You notice in the second verse, God says to Joshua, He said, Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people unto the land. Now get this, which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. God says, I am going to give it to them.

Verse 3, every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that I have given unto you. In other words, he's saying, I am going to do it. I am going to do it. But now look at verse 6. Be strong and of a good courage, for unto this people thou shalt divide for an inheritance which I swear unto their fathers.

You see, God is saying in one instance, He's saying, I'm going to give it. I'm going to give it to you. But He said, you also are going to give it. You are going to divide it. In other words, He said, there's going to have to be cooperation. Every place that the sole of your foot shall set upon, I have given to you.

It's going to require something from you. Most of us would just like to sit back, never put our foot in taking a step forward, and just say, Lord, it's all up to you. You do it all. God says, I have given it to you, but you're going to have to walk across it. And every place you put your foot down, I have given that to you, but you are going to have to put your foot down. In other words, he's saying you're going to have to persevere. I thought it was interesting that he didn't say that every place that you ride across,

but every place that you walk. Now, they had chariots and they had horses, and I don't know, it may be that Joshua himself, being the head of the army, being general, it looked to me as though he would ride. But God said it's not every place that you ride across, it's every place that you put your foot down. And notice he says, the sole of your foot. He didn't say the sole of your shoe or the sole of your sandal. He said, the sole of your foot. In other words, I'm not saying now that he actually went barefooted, but God is speaking in language that would indicate, Joshua, it's as though you're going to be barefooted. And that was always the sign and the symbol of a slave. Slaves always went barefooted, and the free people always wore sandals or shoes.

He says, every place that you put the sole of your foot, every place the sole of your foot touches, that have I given unto you. In other words, God's saying it's going to take some persistence on your part, one step at a time. It's going to take some patience, one step at a time. One step at a time, I have given that to you. I find that some of us in the Christian life want to live two days at a time, going to take some patience, one step at a time, one step at a time, I have given that to you. I find that some of us in the Christian life want to live two days at a time, or two months

at a time, or two years at a time, and we want to just be able to look out and see all the land and think that seeing it gives it to us. No, sir. Seeing it does not make it yours. It is as you walk step by step, one after another, persistently, patiently, as you cooperate with God in obedience. God gives you this victory today, this victory tomorrow, this victory the next week. There's no such thing as God just giving you total victory in every area all at once.

After one city is conquered, there's another city. After that city is conquered, there is another one. There must be cooperation. One last thing. This not only requires cooperation, it also requires courage. Did you notice three times in this passage God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous? Do you ever talk to yourself or talk to the Lord when you read the Bible? I've gotten into the habit of doing that,

and sometimes it causes some very interesting discussions between the Lord and myself. But three times he told Joshua to be strong and of good courage. And every time I read that, I would say, how can a man just be strong? I mean, if I come to you and say, be strong, just merely willing to be strong doesn't make you strong. Be courageous. You just can't say, okay, I'm courageous. And yet God is saying to Joshua, I want you to be strong. I want you to be courageous. I don't want you to be afraid. And as I kept looking at it, I said, there has to be some source. There has to be some dynamic.

There has to be some way that Joshua can become strong other than just by willing it to be so. And I found that what it was. There are two ways that you and I become courageous as we live our Christian life. Number one, when we have the assurance of God's presence. You'll notice in verse life, number one, when we have the assurance of God's presence. You will notice in verse 5 he says, There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.

I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Isn't that precious? I will be with thee. I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Now, folks, this is what I mean when I'm saying if you've got to accept this as God's word to you personally, I don't know of anything else that will give a man or woman as they walk through life with Jesus' courage as realizing that God's presence is assured. God's presence is assured.

I want you to know he's as much with me tonight as he was with Joshua more so because he indwells me through his Holy Spirit he's as much with me tonight as he was with Simon Peter he's as much with me tonight as he was with Paul the Apostle he's just as much with you

as he was with any of those early Christians and as I read the book of Acts which is kind of a counterpart to the book of Joshua as that new church moves in conquers victories one right after another for the Lord. There's an unusual courage and boldness and strength, and it's because they have the assurance of God's presence, God's presence with them.

God's presence is always with us. But there's something else, and this is what I want to close with. You know, as you read this, you discover that all the promises of God have already been accomplished. Did you notice in the second verse and the third verse that God does not say, I will give you the land? He says, I've already given it to you. It's already yours. It's already yours. It's already yours.

He said, every place you put your foot down, Joshua, I've already conquered that. I've already given that to you. Even their enemies recognize this. Remember in the second chapter when the spies went into the house of Rahab, she says, we know that the Lord has given us into your hands. They hadn't even had a fight yet. They hadn't even crossed the Jordan yet.

They had not even engaged in battle yet. And yet even the pagans knew that God had already given the people into the hands of the Israelites. The thing that will make you courageous in your Christian life, and by that I mean not being afraid as you live from day to day, is to realize that tomorrow morning when you get up and you go outside, every temptation that you're going to encounter has already been overcome by Jesus when he died on the cross. Every problem, every difficult, every trial, every obstacle has already been overcome before you ever meet it. Before you ever meet it. He says again and again to Joshua, I have

given past tense. It's yours. You just reach out and take it. You just walk. And every time you put your foot down, you're walking on ground that I've already given you title to. Every territory in your life has already been conquered. You see, you don't go out in the day trying to gain the victory. You go out from victory. Did you ever used to play king on the mountain when you were a child. King on the mountain. You know what king on the mountain is, don't you? That's when one kid gets on a hill or a little slope, and there's all the other kids throw him off. He's king of the mountain.

Well, I want to tell you something tonight, in case you didn't know it. Jesus Christ has made me king of the mountain, and he's made you king of the mountains. And he's made you king of the mountains. He has already won for you every victory. You say, well, why am I not experiencing it then? Because you haven't accepted it as your own personal victory. You're not abiding in the word to do all that God told you to do. You

are not acting upon it, walking in obedience. I want to give you assurance tonight that as you and I accept the Word of God as our own personal Word, as we abide in it and let it abide in us and it becomes a very part of our lives, we meditate on it, we allow it to regulate our conduct, and then if we step out and act upon it and do whatever God tells us to do, obey all that we know to obey, I want you to know God will make real what he has already made actual in your own life, in your own heart. If you're afraid tonight, if you're weak, it's simply because you haven't taken the promises of God as your own

and acting upon them the victory is already won for the believer and every day that he lives he lives and walks on ground that's already been conquered now would you bow your heads for a moment the Ron Dunn podcast is available only for personal edification,

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