职事英语学习 > 特会训练听抄 > 2021 ST, msg. 3
Crossing the Jordan River and Being Prepared for Battle
Part 1
Well, saints, this afternoon we come to message three concerning the crossing the river, Jordan river, and being prepared for battle. Up to this point, God’s people, they are ready to enter the good land, to possess the good land, and also to face these enemies, to engage in the battle. However, before they can actually go in, they come to river Jordan where they have to cross over before they can enter the good land. Well, this is a very significant matter. This record concerning the crossing of the river Jordan and being prepared for the battle is full of spiritual significance to get to prepare God’s people to possess the land and to fight against the enemies.
We remember in the history of the children of Israel, they had to pass through, pass over two bodies of water. If you recall, when they left Egypt, they were brought to the Red Sea. They had to cross the Red Sea. And now 40 years later, they have to cross another river, Jordan river. I found it is very significant to compare the crossing of these two bodies of water. The crossing of the Red Sea happened when God rescued His people out of Egypt. And at that time they were just like a motley crew of people, a crowd, just rushing to get out of Egypt. And of course, Moses was there, under God’s order, to cause the river to the red sea to part. And then the people just marched across that river. And then as they went over to the other side, the Egyptian army, they followed them and eventually they were all drowned under the sea. So that picture shows us that the God’s people were delivered from the worldly power, the worldly influence. By crossing the river, all the worldly powers were buried under the red sea, and they were set free to be ushered into a journey to travel with God through the wilderness.
So the red sea became a separating line… to cause God’s people to be separated from everything of the world, everything of the past. Now they are having a new beginning to journey with God in the wilderness. And… in those 40 years of journeying in the wilderness, God dispenses His law, His word to His people. And also there was the tabernacle as God’s traveling movable dwelling place on the earth. There was the priesthood with the sacrifices with the offerings for God’s people to enjoy, to participate. And in those 40 years God fed His people with manna from heaven every day, and He quenched their thirst with the water from the cleft rock. And that was their journey. That was our Christian life, after being saved, crossing that red sea, burying all the worldly forces behind, allowing us to journey with God in our Christian life.
And even during those 40 years, there were some fighting against some enemies here and there. But now at the end of the 40 years, they came to a point where they are about to enter God’s promised land, the land promised by God to His people, where they will build the solid and large temple, God’s dwelling place on the earth and where they will be engaging in battle, as they had never experienced before. There will be the tribes as the kingdom of Satan. All the collective evil forces were there. It’s at this point God brought them to another river, the river Jordan. Before they are able to enter into that land to possess it, to build God’s…to bring in God’s kingdom and to defeat God’s enemy.
God wants His people to cross that river, the river Jordan. And this time, this river is not for destroying the worldly forces as they experience within the Red Sea. Here in the crossing of the river Jordan, as we see from all the…what this…. Crossing signifies the self, the natural man, the old man has to be dealt with, and a resurrected Israel needs to be brought in, brought forth to the other side. So just the destruction of the worldly forces will not be, will not be enough, adequate to prepare them to enter the good land to possess the land. They need to cross this second river, the river Jordan, where their old man, the natural man will be fully buried, fully terminated. And a new, and new people will be brought forth to engage in this spiritual warfare and to possess the land to establish God’s kingdom. So this matter, this record concerning the crossing of the river Jordan and being prepared for battle is full of significance.
I pray the Lord will speak to us, use this record…this portion here to grant us much enlightenment, not just as a story that we read from the Bible, but how it is being applied to us. And I believe, by comparing even these two crossings of the water bodies, the crossing the red sea which actually is most Christians are more familiar with that crossing. But we are more…we are really at the crossing of this other river, at the river Jordan. Here is not a matter of having a journey with God to maintain, to live a kind of a Christian life with some kind of an enjoyment with God. Now we are going to enter into God’s promised land, to possess that land, to establish God’s kingdom, and to defeat, to fully annihilate God’s enemy, all the evil forces. I believe this is where the Lord has brought us today. We are not here just to maintain, to have a good Christian life. We’re here to carry out God’s purpose to fulfill His economy. So what is implied here is very significant, very very important.