Sermon Tone Analysis

intro

Private school, debate club, fancy univercity degree, internship as prestigious firm...

God has a different route.

God prefers his leaders to come from the school of hared knocks.

And he uses each of these hard knocks to teach, prefect and groe his leaders.

aw tozer - every that has happaed has happed to make me more christlike it resolves a great deal of stress.

God has a major undertaking to perform and he needed someone who would be up to the task, so God spent years training a sutible candidate for a powerful leadreship role, and the candidate did not even know he was being trained.

That is something we all must remeber, God has plans and purposes for our lives we have not even thought of yet.

Who knows the Lord plan in 5, 10, 15 years, but He may well have already sighned you up in the school of hard knocks to prepare you for when the time is right.

Joshua was such a man.

We know Joshua has the man who led Israel into the promised Land, the man who picked up where Moses left off.

But he had no idera that this mantle would fall of him.

He started with humble beginings and God trained him throufgh situations to circumstances to become just the right kind of person.

Joshua is refered to in scripture simply as:

He was an amazing leader, but all his succsess simply came from him humbly serving the Lord.

Lesson 1: The Humility of Slavery.

Joshua was born in pharoah palace like Moses, he born as a slave in Egypt.

His birth name was Hoshea, whuch means salvation, and Moses later changed it to Joshua which means “Jehova is salvation”.

The story must always begin with God.

Joshua was the first born Son of Nun, Think about that.

He was a first born son in the land of Egypt.

Joshua’s life was in danger on the night of the passover, he would have died had what not taken place?

Had it not been for the blood of the lamb on the dorpost Joshua would have died.

Our stroty also starts in the same place.

Were it not for the blood of Jesus we would have no future, no hope would die in our sins, cast into Hell for all eternity.

Joshua was a slave in Egypt and was taken out of slavery by the blood of a lamb, which pointed to the true Lamb of God.

We were also born into slavery, slavery top sin.

And our stiory, like Joshua’s begins with God’s mercy towards us through the shed blood of the Lamb.

Can you imagine Joshua sitting in his room, knowing he was a first born, hearing the screams of people as their first borns died, Joshua had to have faith that becume of the blood on the dor post, he would live.

We must have that same faith in the blood., we live our lives in faith, that although we were deserving of death, we have passed from death by life through faith in Jesus.

Lesson 2: The Courage of a Solder

The first official recod of Joshia in scripture is his defeat of the Amekalites, whgen they attcked Israel.

They attacked them within 2 months of leaving Egypt.

Spiritual attack comes quicly to God’s children, the enemy hates us and attacks swiftly to discourage our lives.

Joshua had to learn to pick up the sword, and use it with skill to keep the enemies at bay.

Joshua was nbot trained before had in battle, Egypt did not allow the Isralites to have wepons (which is always the way of eviul goverments who fear their people).

So Joshua had to learn quikly.

His main Job was lead Israels army in battle and to proctest God’s meetings.

Why was Joshua so so with the sword?

Well the truth is, it was not the metal swrd that gave him his skill but the Sword of the Spirit.

Like Joshua, we will come under satanic and decmoc attack.

And we must be prepared to meet thatr attack with the sword.

Now of course our wepons are spieirual because our foes are spiritual:

And our Equitment is Spiritual:

And the Word is our Sword and we must be skilled in its usage if we are going to defest the Enemy.

And like Joshua not only must we protect our lives in general, but specifically we must stand gaurd over our meetings with God, knowing that if Satan can stop you from going to church, he has already won the war - we must NEVER depat the “Tabernacle.

- the church.

End of Part 1