God has given us revelation about the promises that he has for us. He's already done everything he's ever going to do, and he's given the revelation without the manifestation, because there must be the demonstration of application in order to receive that manifestation.
This is treasure truth with pastor and author James Ford Jr, senior pastor of Christ Bible Church in Chicago. I'm Steve Hiller and glad that you've joined us. As today we continue to look at the book of Joshua in a message entitled takers. Pastor, we've talked quite a bit about the fact that God has revealed in His Word promises that are applicable for us today. We need to rightly
discern what those are. And sometimes I think well-meaning Christians can struggle with discerning what they are because they hear contrary Bible teaching. Sometimes they may hear what we may refer to as prosperity gospel and think that is a promise for me today. After all, it's in the Bible. How would it not be for me? So how do we discern, you know, those promises that are for us today versus those promises that they may hear from a prosperity gospel preacher?
Well, what is timeless principle that that's what we're looking for? Principle is a timeless truth that's applicable to all believers across all generations. And so, you know, they are promises that we can claim now. Now, when I listen to the tease, if I were just to hear the tease, I would say, huh? Yeah. What's he talking about now? Now let me just share. All of my grandchildren know this pawpaw has a college fund for them. I started it when they were babies and when they were old
enough to comprehend, I share it with them. I have some money that I'm going to give to you for college. I gave them a revelation, but I didn't give them the manifestation because they don't get the money until they sign up to go to college. So what happens if they don't go to college? They don't get the money. Yeah. See, they don't get the manifestation of the revelation because there hasn't been a demonstration and application of what the conditions were. Are you feeling me?
I'm feeling you. I think the light bulb just went on for a few of us.
All right, all right. And that's the way it is in the word of God. I mean, if it's a conditional promise and you have to ask yourself, to whom was this written? And so if it was written to Israel, some of the promises to Israel only apply to Israel. Mhm. But is there a timeless principle that applies to us as believers? Now I'm just going to be honest, sometimes we as evangelicals, we throw out the baby with the bathwater. You know, because of the prosperity gospel, we don't want
to believe anything that God has said. We don't want to trust him for anything. Now, you know, the Bible says in Ephesians one three, we're blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And so if I want to be blessed, I've got to make sure I'm in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, because everything, remember, has to do with the purpose of God. And so we don't have to ask God for a lot of things. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you. So when my oldest grandson was getting ready to go to college, he didn't say, now remember that promise you made me right? No. I took the money out and gave him a cashier's check, and he said, well, thank you, Papa, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, that is a truth that many of us, as we've been talking about in this series, need to work on applying and strengthening our faith in that way. We look at that today from the book of Joshua as we continue takers. Here's Pastor Ford.
Now, Thomas Geisel wanted to write children's books. I've told you about him before, but I want to share something else about him because he wanted to do it in his own style. Uh, he felt that his style was more creative, uh, more innovative and more captivating than what was currently going on in the marketplace at that time. Uh, the only problem with his first work was that 27 publishers didn't agree with him. I said 27 publishers didn't agree with him. In other words, he was rejected 27
times by 27 different Publishing companies. You said that already. Pastor Ford, how many times are you going to say it? I just want you to. How many would it take for you to give up? How many times do you need to be rejected before you give up? Uh, well, I'm saying he was 27, and here's here's what he said. Uh, one, one letter said this. This is too different from other genres on the market to warrant its selling. But why do you share it again? Because I like his attitude.
Here's his attitude. He had the attitude of a taker. He's going to possess his possessions. And so what he decided to do was this here's what he said I know you're going to like this. I know you're going to like it, he said. I did not get rejected 27 times. It wasn't 27 rejections. It was 27 steps to acceptance. I like that, man, I like that. Yeah, yeah. And he went on to be he went on to be published. Uh, let me Fordyce, this thing for you. See,
often rejections are just steps for directions. Let me let me say it this way. Uh, God often uses our rejection for redirection. That that we're going in the wrong direction. Uh, going to the wrong things, people, places, things. And God has to give us a rejection so that he can redirect us. Some of you know what I'm talking about. Uh, because you wouldn't let them go. So God had them reject you. But now you can look back and in hindsight, because hindsight's always 20 over 20. And thank God for
unanswered prayer. Amen. Thank you, Lord, for not giving me who I was begging you for. And now I can look back and see. I really didn't want that person in the first place. They weren't good for me, even though they might have been good to me back then. I know that right now who I have is better than what I ever would have had. So I thank you for the rejection. I know what some of us
need to do. Here's what we need to do. We need to go out to Walmart or to Walgreens and go in the car department and send a thank you to everybody that rejected us and pushed us toward our God given possessions. That's what we are to thank you for hating on me. Thank you for lying on me. Thank you for cheating on me because you only revealed who you really was and your rejection, uh, helped me to move on. And now look who I'm with. Look what I have. Y'all ain't going to pray with me
this morning, but I'm going to preach anyway. I came to preach to myself anyway. And so, you know, you you you the job you wanted that rejected you. But now the one that you've gotten is better than the one you would have had had they accepted you. And now you're glad they threw out your resume? Yeah. Sometimes to get where you're supposed to be, God has to take you out of what you should not have been in first place. Mhm. So Thomas Geisel saw rejection as what?
What did he see it as 27 steps to acceptance instead of 27 rejection. You want to know why? Because he was a taker and not a taker. Yeah. He went after it and he didn't stop until it happened. So so what what will happen? Thomas went on. And to have that book published that was rejected 27 times. Then he went on to write 60 books, 48 of which are children's books. They are written in 15 different languages. Today, he has sold over 600 million copies of his books.
His books were turned into four feature films, 11 TV specials, a Broadway musical, and four TV series. He has one. Thomas Geisel has won. He's won. Where? He won two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards. The Pulitzer Prize. Uh, in in in literature and a Peabody Award. All of that because he understood. Sometimes you just got to be a taker. You gotta understand that your stumbling blocks are actually stepping stones. Somebody's gotta realize that a setback is often a set
up for a comeback. Y'all ain't going to help me in here. And so what happened? Yeah, we know who he is. Who is? Who is Thomas? Thomas Geisel? Well, his middle name. And you would know him by one of his favorite characters and most well known characters, the Cat in the hat. Because Thomas Geisel is Thomas Seuss Geisel, we know him as Doctor Seuss. And I know that there's some folk I'm talking to today who are just like Thomas Seuss Geisel. Yeah, yeah. Nobody knows your name.
But God has given you something that is a possession that you need to take so that everybody will know that God is a God that blesses us too. Amen. Amen. And so he uses middle name. And in our text we have seen that Joshua is being told by God, I want you to be a doctor. Seuss. Uh, but that when you look at the promised Land, you need to be a taker and you need to take your God given possession. So here's the theme that God will give us the manifestation of his revelation when we meet
his qualifications for his possession. So this this text is tailored to teach this timeless truth. There are six qualifications required by us to possess our God given possessions. Here we go. Review the two and then move on and finish the four. Number one respond to God's plan. That's verses one and two. Listen to what it says 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. Stop! Here's what he's saying. Joshua is now time to respond to my plan. Moses is dead, but God programmed. It continues on. So you mourn for 30 days. That's enough. That's enough delay on my program. Get you up. And all of these people respond to my plan. And in verses one and two, respond to my plan in spite
of people. Don't worry about the fact that Moses is dead and that people may say, well, when Moses was our pastor, we did it this way, Joshua. Move on. Don't let anybody despise your youth, your newness, any of that kind of stuff. So in spite of people, but then in spite of the past, because we've not always done it this way before, and we've not always gone this way before, and we need new direction with new ministry springing up with new people that we don't know.
Some of you said, who are some of those folk? And so, in spite of the problems, they're looking at a swelling Jordan. And God points to the Jordan, say you're going to go over this, Jordan. So he says, respond to the plan. Don't let anything stop you. Be a taker. So remember what he said. Here's the outline of the book. Take my people in. That's chapters. What? How many been here? All messages okay, that's chapter chapters. What one through five. That's right. And take those people out.
What chapters are those? That's right. Six through 13, I mean 12. And then take that place over. See take, take, take, take my people in chapters one through six. Take those people out verse chapter 6 to 12 and take that place over chapter 13 through 22. So God is saying, I want you to be a taker. Now, remember, there was over 2 million people who died in the wilderness because they would not possess their God given possessions. Look at your neighbor. Come on, come on. Help me preach this.
Look at your neighbor. Say, neighbor. You can't have a five star church with two star people and a one star vision. Amen. Amen. And so they failed to believe God. Hebrews chapter four, verse three. It says, and you look at it later on, it says that because the promise was not mixed with faith, those who had the promise didn't go into the land. They all died in the wilderness because of unbelief. So they didn't have faith. Now
remember what we said? We said that that faith is like Jheri curl activator, that if you had a Jheri curl, it wasn't going to come into fruition and look good until you activate it with the Jheri curl juice. But it was the activator that really made the Jheri curl. Am I right about it? Some of y'all had a Jheri curl. Y'all know that? Yeah. And so he's saying. He's saying I got a promise and you activate it by faith. Here's my plan. And they didn't believe it.
And if you don't believe it, you don't get it. See, they acted like they didn't know that the God above you is greater than the problems around you and the fear inside of you. Let me say it again. That's tweetable. That's Tweetable. They didn't realize that the God above you is greater than the problems around you and the fear that's within you. Amen. And so then Doctor Martin Luther King Junior said, faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the staircase. That's it.
Well, that is it. And that was Tweetable just a moment ago. Speaking of tweeting, you can always follow Pastor Ford on Twitter. You can also like us on Facebook. And we'd love to connect with you and interact with you on social media. That way you'll find those links when you come to our website. It's Treasure Truth Dawg. I also want to remind you, if you're ever in the Chicago area, you can visit Christ Bible Church and hear Pastor Ford speak live. Information at our website. Treasure
Truth radio.org. Back to the message. Here's Pastor Ford.
See, see, I, I tell you all the time. Let me repeat it. Can I repeat it? Say repeat it, pastor. Yeah, yeah. Faith gives you insight like it is foresight. I mean, no, no. Faith gives you insight into foresight. Like it's hindsight. Okay, I got that right that time. So even the way you respond to it, guess what? I'm always trying to grow and I, I, I believe I have a teachable spirit. Now some things I'm not going to move on because
I'm settled in it. But if you show me some things and I go back and restudy and stuff and say, whoa, I don't have to back up off of this. I used to say, boom, you know, I do that all the time. I'm not. So I used to sign my books.
God bless you at the end. God bless you. And then I'm reading the book of Ephesians, and I realize that's not the most biblically accurate thing to say to a person, because Ephesians one three says, we are blessed past tense with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So I start, I start saying, God has blessed you already. Somebody say, God bless you, pastor. I say, God has blessed you already because that's in the past tense.
It's this. It's it's what's in this book, in this chapter, what we're talking about now that God has given us revelation about the promises that he has for us, he's already done everything he's ever going to do, and he's given the revelation without the manifestation, because there must be the demonstration of application in order to receive that manifestation. And so, in other words, that's why we're talking about
what do they have to do to possess this? God has some things that he wants them to do in order to possess it. And so he says, the land I have given you past tense. It's already yours. All you got to do is walk in it. And so then notice God's plan gives you direction and dimensions. What do you mean, Pastor Ford? It tells you which way to go. And it tells you what your parameters are, where you can't step outside of this and step inside of that. Uh, you know, I didn't get a chance
to introduce her. She's going to kill me. But that's okay, because I want to introduce her right now in my sermon. Miss Shawn Diaz. Stand up, stand up, miss Shawn, dear. Look at it. Look at it. I saw her eyes cut. Boy. She said, ooh, Imma get you. She's working with us in our marketing and media along with my son right now, and we're trying to put together a larger media team, but she is off the chain. Amen. You may be
seated and and she she's just so creative. And this social media stuff, she didn't even told me because I don't post all the time. She even told me when I should post on Facebook. I say, man, now you know, that's deep, that's deep. So she's real good. I'm, I'm really pleased to be learning some stuff, uh, from the both of them about, uh, marketing and media. But anyway, that's that's her forte. She's got her degree in that she's very good at it, and she's going around with
job interviews. And she got offered a job at NBC. Yeah. Yeah. One of the big three. And she turned it down. And she turned it down for a company of which I have never heard. And as I was trying to think what she told me, the name of the company was, I couldn't even remember it. And when I, when I heard the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey said, I said, wow, I wish I had had that and worked that in the beginning of my message. Because why
didn't you want that job? They're offering a bigger salary than the one you got. Yes, but they only do TV. And I want a company that does TV, radio, internet, computers, social media. I want a company. And this company does it all. So I won't be locked in to just television. Now, maybe one day I'll accept the job at NBC. But for right now, I want to get all that exposure. Because one day I want to have Shonda Williams Media Corporation. I said, man, that's it. I mean, I kind of
felt like, uh, you know, uh, the A-Team. I love it when a plan comes together and God says, I've got a plan for you. Now God's plan, let me tell you, you're either on the way or in the way. Come on, tell somebody. If you're in the way. Get out! Get out of the way! Come on, go on. Yeah. Then secondly, we saw. Rest on God's promises. Rest on God's promises. That is verses three and four. Look at
verses three and four. Verses three and four. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, uh, that I have given unto you, as I said unto Moses, from this wilderness and this Lebanon, even until the great river, the river Euphrates unto the great sea. Toward the going down of the sun shall be your coast. Now, God, what are you saying? What are you doing? God is letting them know. Listen, listen. You've got to rest on the promises I gave you. Promises. Now a lot of
people make promises. Uh, you got some people who say, uh, loan me some money until payday Friday and somebody can testify. Don't raise your hand. You might be sitting next to him, or they may be in the sanctuary. Uh, but what did they do? They didn't tell you which Friday. And they didn't tell you which year? Some. Come on. Some of us know there's folk now trying to look away
because they know they owe us money. And they look, they say sitting over here and they and instead of looking at me, they're looking at the wall because they know you looking from over there. Because you moved from over there. Because they ain't paid you your money yet. And then walk up in here talking about praise the Lord, acting like they don't know they owe you money? Yeah, yeah. You saw us up here. Why do you think I said suppose. Because you never know what's going to happen.
Because we made that promise. I so and so do take you so and so as my lawfully wedded spouse to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in poverty until death do us part. And I tell you all the time, some of us, it's just until death do us part. Yeah. People make promises. I'll call you back later on today. We're going to hook up later on this week. Come on now. I mean, how many have been told that and and heard from the person yet? Come on, come on. Look at look at
look at the hands. Look at the hands. Yeah. And so what? Oh, here's the here's one. I'll pray for you. Look at that. Look at that, everybody. Everybody's saying, man, what a farce. You know, and so we make promises. But we need to understand here. God makes them a promise. And he says, listen, I want you to understand two things. You've got to personalize the promise. And I told you what I do. I put my name there. I put my name there. Uh, pastor for can do all things
through Christ who strengthens him. Pastor Ford has never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. Pastor Ford is the head and not the tail. Pastor Ford that knows the plans that God has for him. Plans for good and not for evil, to bring him to a desired end. Pastor Ford, pastor for I personalize it. But then. But then you got to participate. Notice what he told them. Walk in it. Walk in it. It's yours, but you're not walking in it. You're not possessing your possession. God
says you gotta walk in it. Oh, yeah. I know the tests are hard, but you got to go to school in order to get that degree. You ain't going to get it at home. And so we need to do that. This neighborhood is ours. He's given it to us. We're a lighthouse, a beacon. Man, we we got to do it. We've got to do it.
A real practical application for Christ Bible Church. But also, how many of us can listen to this Bible teaching and think of areas in our life where we've got to do it. We've got to take it. You're listening to Treasure Truth, a message called takers. It's from Joshua chapter one, and Pastor Ford has been on this passage of scripture for a number of days. If you've missed any of the broadcast, come to Treasure Truth radio.org and
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doing that. And thanks to our producer, Amy Rios for Pastor Ford, I'm Steve Hiller. Treasure truth is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.