The Difference Between Barrenness and Fruitfulness

Greetings to all of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's been a long time since we've been at Shippensburg Christian Fellowship. I'm not sure how many years it's been. Something over 20. I'm not exactly sure. But it's been a long time. I don't think I've ever been in this fellowship. How many years has it been since you've been in this building?

Since '97. Since '97. Wow. Okay.

I'm blessed to be here with God's people this morning.

Sometimes we become discouraged at things we see happening in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But I believe that the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is bigger than any of us realize. And one day we're going to all be together in glory with those who have been faithful to the end. May God help us to be part of that group.

Greetings from Ghana, West Africa. Some of you may know Daniel and Christy Kenniston. They would send their greetings also.

Blessed with what God is doing there. God has enabled my wife and I to be there for a bit over 31 years now. And God is working. God is building His church. Not that there aren't any problems. Wherever God is working, it seems like Satan is also busy.

And so we face the same struggles you all face. They may look a little bit different here and there, but it's the same struggles with sin, with the flesh, with self. And the Lord is building His church. Maybe I'll just give a brief overview of some of the things we do there. Some of you may wonder what you do in Ghana.

We went as church planters. And by God's grace, churches have been planted. God led us through different ways, led us to a tribe, the Konkhomba people, who are very hungry for the gospel. Even other mission agencies are saying that something is very unusual about the hunger of those people.

Our missionaries in the north started among the Dagomba people, who are Islamic and quite resistant to the gospel since they feel like they already have the one true God. They left their idols. They're already worshiping the one true God. So it's harder to reach them. But while our missionaries were trying to minister and make disciples among the Dagomba people, a couple young men would either ride bike or walk, I think it was seven miles, from their village to church almost every Sunday morning.

And they kept begging the missionaries, "Can't you come to our village and preach?" And finally they persisted, and our missionaries went. And that was the beginning of the work among the Konkhomba people. Most of our churches are among the Konkhomba tribe. We have a few churches among other tribes, but most of them are among the Konkhomba.

There are something over 40 churches now among the Konkhomba tribe. I'm not sure how many there are because they keep going to the next village and the next village and opening another church. So God is working. God is moving.

And we pray that God will help them and us all to be faithful to the end.

Part of my work, a major part of my work now, is Bible school. As the work has matured, one of the final stages in church planting is training leaders. And that's an important part of church planting. And so we have a Bible school that runs during the dry season, January, February, March, when there's almost zero rain and the men can't work in their farms anyway.

They come to Bible school. We have room for about 40 at the Bible school. Most of them from our churches, but some from other churches. And we try to teach the Word of God and teach practical things like how to preach, how to administrate a church.

So you can pray for us in that role.

Before we enter the message, I'd just like to bow my head and pray. You can join me. Lord, we thank You so much for Your Son Jesus Christ, who is the head of the church. Thank You, Father, that through Jesus Christ You have redeemed us. We worship You. We thank You for that precious blood. Father, we thank You for the Cross of Calvary and all that You accomplished there. We thank You for Your resurrection from the dead. Lord, what a glorious hope, a bright hope You have set before us. And we pray, Lord, that in this message and in the rest of this meeting here, that Jesus Christ will be exalted and Him alone. Lord, would You open our eyes to see Jesus.

I just pray, Father, for the working of Your Holy Spirit in each of our hearts here as we open Your Word and ponder what You have to speak to us. Lord, transform us, change us from glory to glory into the image of Your dear Son. Lord, I know that's Your will. And we pray that You will accomplish that in a greater measure this morning. Thank You, Father. In Jesus' name. Amen.

You may open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 10. I would like to read some verses there. While you're turning there, I want to ask you a question. I'm a bit more of a teacher than a preacher. So if I want you to be a little interactive, please forgive me.

But the question is this: Why was Jesus able to accomplish so much and have so much impact in just three and a half years?

I think that Jesus accomplished more in three and a half years than any other man.

How was Jesus able to accomplish so much in just three and a half years and have so much impact? I mean, we date time from Jesus Christ's birth, right? BC and Anno Domini, the year of our Lord. Time revolves around Christ. I think that's one of the reasons why the Antichrist will seek to change times and seasons, because every time you say 2024, it's reminding us of Jesus Christ.

So the question's open. What are your thoughts? Why do you think? What comes to your mind? Why was Jesus able to accomplish so much in only three and a half years? He didn't show any partiality. He didn't show any partiality. Good. He always did the will of His Father. He always did the will of His Father.

Anyone else?

He was focused. He was? Focused. Focused. Thank you.

He was completely humble. He was completely humble. And God could use him. I'm thankful that none of you said, "Well, He was God." So that's how He was able to do so much in three and a half years.

Yes, Jesus is God. Amen? But He laid much of that aside of His divinity when He came as a human being. I believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. Don't ask me to explain it to you because I can't. It's the miracle of God's love.

I get into discussions many times with Muslims. They live all around us. They're in Tamalee, where we live. And they ridicule us for believing that a man could be God and God could be a man. It's a miracle of God's love. I can't explain it to you.

The title of the message this morning is "The Difference Between Barrenness and Fruitfulness."

So this is a missionary message because every one of us is supposed to be a missionary. Amen?

Amen. I didn't say foreign missionary. But every one of us, God has a mission, a job, a specific work for you to do, whether you're young, whether you're a woman, whether you're a busy mama, whether you're a grandpa, whether you've got money, whether you don't. God has a specific work that He wants you to do.

And I hope for some of you it's a foreign mission because the work is far from done. Maybe for some of you it'll be a foreign mission with the foreigners that God is letting pour into this land.

The difference between barrenness and fruitfulness. So let's read 1 Corinthians chapter 10, the first 14 verses. "Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." What's Paul talking about here?

He's talking about the history, the time of Israel when they came out of Egypt and were wandering through the wilderness. That's what he's referencing here. Verse 3. "And did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things were our examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters as were some of them, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

Neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer.

Now all these things happened unto them for examples, and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed, lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it.

Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry."

I'd like us to just ponder the history of Israel here a bit.

They came out of Egypt after they crossed through the Red Sea, went to Mount Sinai, and God gave them the law. After they left Sinai, they wended their way up to the edge of Canaan. Moses sent the twelve spies into the land of Canaan.

Ten came back with an evil report, a faithless report. Two came back with a good report, a faith-filled report. They all saw the same things, but two of them had faith, ten of them didn't. And they turned back. They said, "We can't do it. Let's appoint a leader to take us back to Egypt if Moses won't do it." And God punished them, let them wander in the wilderness another 38 years until 40 years were accomplished, a year for each day that the spies had searched out that good land that God wanted to give them.

And after 38 years, they came up to the edge of the promised land again. And this time there was faith. All of the faithless ones had died off, and their children are now adults. And they are entering the land, cross over the River Jordan, and enter the land and conquer it. Are victorious.

I would like to suggest that the crossing of the Red Sea is a picture of initial salvation. It's interesting that the sea is red, and it's the blood of Jesus that saves us. Amen? Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. It's also interesting that when they came to the edge of the Red Sea and Pharaoh and his armies were coming up behind them and the Red Sea is in front of them, the people cried out to Moses. And they said, "What shall we do? And we wish we would have died back in Egypt." And Moses said something significant. He said, "You will not need to fight in this battle.

Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord."

When you got saved, did you save yourself? Or you just walked forward on the path, the miraculous path that God had provided for you? That's how I got saved. I tried for a while to do it myself and finally realized I can't.

It was when I got honest and told God, "I can't save myself. I can't change my heart. You're going to have to do it." That's when God did it. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Yes, you have a choice.

But God blew with His wind. Moses held His rod over that water, and it parted. There was a wall of water on both sides, and they walked through on dry ground, reached the other side, and Moses lifts His rod over the sea again, and the whole Egyptian army is drowned.

Calvary, the cross of Jesus Christ by which Satan thought he was conquering, became his defeat. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah?

Oh, I'm used to preaching to Africans.

Amen. The Lord has done it for us.

Then they come and reach Mount Sinai. After a bit of wandering and finding God's miraculous provision for manna and water, they come to Mount Sinai, and God gives them the law.

And God has also given us His perfect law of liberty. And eventually, they reach the land of Canaan, and they're supposed to conquer those giants, those Canaanites with their walled cities. And I would like to look at that this morning as a type of self.

Those Canaanites, those giants of Canaan are giants of self.

And there's another body of water to be crossed in sanctification. Now, don't go home and tell your people that, "Oh, Brother Ross is teaching second work of grace." Well, I am, but I'm teaching a third and a fourth and a fifth one also.

But it does often happen like this. Listen, it does often happen like this. All these things happened unto them for our examples. It does often happen like this that when we come to salvation, we see our sinfulness, right?

That's how I came. I saw my sinfulness. And you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. You heard the good news that Jesus died as the sacrifice for your sins and rose from the dead, and you believed it, and you said, "I'm going to follow Him," and your sins were washed away. Amen? Amen? Hallelujah.

And then you begin to get into God's Word, and God reveals more of Himself and His holy law to you. And the more you go into that, the more you begin to see self, those giants of self.

Just as Israel couldn't save themselves from Pharaoh, so Israel also couldn't, without God's help, conquer Canaan. And just as you and I could not save ourselves from our sins, so you and I cannot conquer self by our own power.

I found that to be true. If you're honest, I'm sure you've also found that to be true. You try hard, and it seems to be going in reverse rather than forward. And God brings us to the place where it takes a miracle of His grace again and again.

Now, I'm not talking about living a defeated life and just 1 John 1:9-8. You know what I mean? "Oh, if we confess our sin, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sin, cleanse us from all unrighteousness." That's an immature Christian or a carnal Christian.

God wants us to conquer the Canaanites, to get victory over them.

But it's like it was with Israel. There's still pockets of resistance. There's still some Canaanites hidden in the hills or in the valleys or on the frontiers. And God, in His mercy, keeps revealing them to us, doesn't He?

He does if we want to go deeper with Him. A little bit like peeling an onion. You get the one layer peeled off, and there's another layer. You peel that layer off, there's another layer. One day, brothers and sisters, we're going to wake up in His likeness. Amen?

But until that day, there are still Canaanites that need conquering, and we must not make alliances with them or even put them under tribute. They need to be destroyed.

And so I see a picture here. Israel, before they first reached Canaan, they were saved. It's a picture of salvation, but it's an immature Christian. They've received God's law, and they're just waking up to the giants that need to be conquered. It's a picture of an immature Christian, a Christian truly, born again but not mature.

And sadly, they saw the giants. They saw the battle, and they said, "We can't. Can't do it." And they turned back. They said, "Let's go back to Egypt." And you know what happened? They wandered aimlessly in the wilderness for 38 years. That's sad.

What wasted lives. What wasted lives. They must have been about, well, they were, what, 600,000 foot soldiers? So there must have been like a million adults plus died. A lot of graves in the wilderness.

And that next 38 years is a picture of carnal Christians.

Yes, they've been delivered from Egypt, but they're not dealing with the giants of self in their life. They've been confronted with them, and they say, "Can't do it. Can't do it. Just can't do it. Got to live with it."

It's a picture of a carnal Christian. And there's a lot of Christianity today that's wandering in the wilderness. Carnal Christians, their lives are purposeless, aimless wanderings, wasted. That's not God's will for us, brothers and sisters. God wants us to come back to the edge of Canaan to see those giants and say, "Yes, they're going to be bread for us." No, we can't do it by ourselves. But if God before us, who can be against us? And they went in and conquered.

And was God with them? Was He ever with them? The sun stood still for another, I guess it was another 12 hours. It says for about the length of another day. So that day was probably 36 hours, 24 hours of daylight instead of 12. Why did God make the sun stand still and the moon stand still?

Well, Joshua prayed, "Yeah, but God wants His people to have victory." God sent hornets. God sent hailstones that killed more than the soldiers of Israel killed of their enemies. God wants us to have victory. He's ready to help us.

And it's interesting in the battles, the campaigns that they needed to fight to conquer Canaan, they had to fight. It wasn't stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. In those battles, they had to fight. Now, they couldn't do it themselves. They found out that when they tried to take Ai and God wasn't with them.

But they did have to fight. And that's how it is in conquering self.

God is ready to help you. I don't know how many of you have ever read the allegory "Palace Beautiful." Have you ever read that? Picture of the black dwarf there in the dungeon of the palace beautiful. Every day, the keeper was to go down and give him a fresh pierce with a sword. And he tried it once without Emmanuel's help, and it didn't work very well. Black dwarf almost got off the cross.

He had to go down and give him a fresh pierce every day. But he had to wait until Emmanuel went with him, Emmanuel's hand on his hand.

So I would like us to look at Christ's example.

Let's turn to Isaiah 40. I'd like to look at a few scriptures here.

Some prophecy in Isaiah, not Isaiah, Psalm 40.

We're going to begin at verse 6. And I get the feeling that God is letting us in on a conversation that He, God the Father, had with God the Son before the world began.

Isaiah 40:6, "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire." This is God the Son speaking. "Mine ears hast thou opened." And I'm not sure what that means, "Mine ears hast thou opened." But there was a practice in the Old Testament. If there was a servant who loved his master and he said, "I don't want to leave my master. I want to serve him all of my life," what would they do for that servant?

They'd back him up to a doorpost and put his ear against the doorpost, and the master would take an awl and make a hole in his ear.

He was earmarked. Anyone who saw him from that day on would know, "Oh, he's a servant who loves his master. He's going to be a slave to that master the rest of his life." And I'm not exactly sure what this means here when Jesus says, "Mine ears hast thou opened." But I wonder if it isn't referring to that. "Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required." That wasn't really what God was after when He gave the law of Moses.

"Then said I, 'Lo I come.' In the volume of the book it is written of me, 'I delight to do thy will, O my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart.'" Did you say Isaiah 40? I'm sorry, Psalm 40.

Psalm 40. I think I made a mistake and said Isaiah 40. Psalm 40:6-8, "I delight to do thy will, O my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart." In the Old Testament, they had the law in a scroll. They had the law externally. But the New Covenant was that God would write His law in people's hearts.

Is God's law in your heart? Now, I'm not just talking about memorizing scripture. You can't be a pagan and memorize scripture. Is God's law in your heart? Jesus said, "Yea, thy law is within my heart." When that's the truth, then the first part is also true. "I delight to do thy will, O my God."

And I believe this is the answer as to why Jesus accomplished so much and had such a huge, tremendous impact in three and a half years. He always did His Father's will. He delighted to do His Father's will. He delighted to delight the Father. Was it easy?

No.

No. And we've got a mistaken concept of love in our culture today. Love is this fuzzy feeling that we have, just mushy feelings. "I'm sorry." That's why so many marriages end on the rocks. Love is a commitment. Let's go to this scripture, Hebrews 5.

Again, looking at the Lord Jesus Christ.

Starting at verse 6, Hebrews 5:6, "As He saith also in another place, 'Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, who in the days of His flesh'" this is talking about the days of Jesus' flesh, "'when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death and was heard in that He feared, though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.'"

What is this talking about? What is this referring to?

I read this numerous times, and I always thought, "Well, this is talking about Gethsemane." That's what it sounds like, doesn't it? Strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death. Jesus was crying out to the Father, "Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me."

Well, this may be referring to Gethsemane, but I believe it's referring to every day in Jesus' life.

Every day in Jesus' life.

"Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death and was heard in that He feared."

The Father didn't save the Lord Jesus from death on Calvary.

But there's a way that seemeth right unto a man, and the end thereof are the ways of death. And that's just simply taking my own way rather than God's way.

Am I pleasing myself, or am I pleasing Jesus? And I believe this verse is referring to that battle. Every day, Jesus Christ crying out to the Father, "Father, keep me from going my own way today.

Father, I need You.

Reveal Your will to me. I want to know Your will so that I can do Your will.

Lord, keep me from going my own way."

Have you ever pondered why Jesus seemed to be able to always say the right thing at the right time?

He seemed to always be at the right place at the right time. He just seemed to know where He was supposed to be and what He was supposed to do and what He was supposed to say. "I want to be like that. Do you?

I want to be effective for the kingdom of God."

How could Jesus do that?

This is it right here. This is it right here. "Lord, You bought me with Your blood." Now, Jesus didn't need to say that. You and I need to say that. We should say it more than He should say it.

"I'm Your love slave. What do You want me to do today? What will please You today?" Lord, we're going to go and visit those people over there. That's the plan. We have a supper invitation. Lord, I want You to direct the conversation.

Lord.

Amen. Amen.

Jesus didn't have a sin nature like you and I have.

But I believe He had to deal with self. He had to yield His will to the Father's will.

And that's why He could always be so effective because He always did that. John 8, Jesus keeps saying things like this, especially in the book of John. John records several of these. John 8:28-29, "Then said Jesus unto them, 'When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He.'" Without that italics word, He says, "And you shall know that I am.

And that I do nothing of myself." What a testimony. "I do nothing of myself. But as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. Lord, teach me." Jesus said the things that the Father wanted Him to say.

What a testimony.

How much filler do I put? How much self-filler enters into my conversations and my words? Jesus said, "As the Father hath taught me, I speak these things." Verse 29, "And He that sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone for or because I always do those things that please Him." How was it that the Father was just always right there with Jesus telling Him what to do, where to go, what to say?

Right here it is. "He that sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone for I do always those things that please Him."

God wants us to graduate beyond, "No, I'm not fornicating. No, I'm not stealing. No, I don't swear and curse anymore. No, I'm not beating my wife." In Africa, we need to say that. Hope we don't need to say that here.

God wants us to graduate. "Am I always doing those things that please Him?"

While everybody else is doing it, I mean,

we make excuses oftentimes

for not obeying the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

"I'd look like a weirdo. I'd look so strange.

If I said that or I did that or didn't do that."

And many times we grieve the Holy Spirit by pleasing ourselves rather than pleasing Him. "He that hath sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone for I do always those things that please Him."

Let's go back to Luke 11 or Luke 9, sorry, Luke 9:23. So that is how Jesus lived His life, and He perfectly lived His life always doing the will of the Father. None of us are able to boast that, but that should be our desire. Amen.

That should be our goal, that we always do those things that please the Father. And here's what Jesus said. This is His call to discipleship. Just look what He says here in verse 23. "And He said to them all, 'If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself.'" He didn't say, "Stop your sins." He said, "Deny yourself."

Now, that's part of stopping your sins. It's part of denying yourself. But it goes much deeper than that. Deny yourself. Take up and take up His cross. And I like how Luke says it. He adds the word daily, daily, "And follow Me."

And so every day, you and I are admonished to do exactly what our Master did. Wait before the Lord and say, "Lord, I want to do Your will today.

Lord, is there any area where my will's not surrendered? Lord, would You reveal Your will to me? Are there any areas where I'm deaf to the voice of Your Holy Spirit because I've taken my own way, and You shouted at me, and I didn't listen? Lord, forgive me. I do want to please You, Lord.

What do You want me to do today? Who do You want me to talk to today? Where do You want me to go today?

"If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself. Take up his cross daily, and follow Me." There's a beautiful picture of this, a type of this Neil Testament. At the temple, every morning and every evening, there was a sacrifice. Every day of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year. It didn't matter whether it was a Sunday or a weekend or a holiday.

Every day, 24/7, 365 or 366 if it was a leap year. It happened every day. There was a burnt offering, a whole burnt offering offered up to the Lord. A whole burnt offering, I believe, is a type of total surrender.

Total surrender. It was burnt, was killed, and then burnt every morning, every evening. Beautiful picture of worship unto our God. Is He not worthy?

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lambs. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, He is God. It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.

We should worship. He's our Maker. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. He just said we're the sheep of His pastor. Why do sheep enter the temple?

There's only one reason. There's only one reason. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, into His courts with praise. Offer yourself unto our God, unto our Lord Jesus Christ, who laid down His life for you, who rose from the dead for you, who rose from the dead and rose to the Father and poured out the Holy Spirit upon you. Offer your life back to Him as a living sacrifice.

Yes, bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar if need be, but offer the sacrifice.

So it's a daily choice that you and I need to make. And I believe this affects every area of my life and your life.

Every area.

"No, I'm in the food line.

What should I put on my tray?"

Does this have anything to do with that?

Yes. Yes. This is the temple of the Holy Ghost. "Lord, how do You want me to keep Your temple whole?"

This just affects every area of life. You know, the flashpoints for young people are usually hair and dress and music oftentimes.

Sometimes we get hard on the young people. What about us dads and moms and grandpas and grandmas?

I remember preaching one place one day, and I said something about, you know, we get hard on our young people for their music and their dress, and yeah, they need to honor the Lord Jesus in those things. I said, "What about us dads and moms?"

You know, we go home for our Sunday feasts and build coffee for all of our guests on these, I don't know how much they cost, hundreds of dollars of coffee makers.

I don't know whose toes I'm stepping on. Hopefully, nobody's. And somebody came to me afterward. They said, "Oh, Brother Ross, you're way back here. It's not hundreds of dollars anymore. It goes over $1,000." You know, got the machine where you put the beans in, and it grinds it right there. It's fresher that way, you know. And you know, you can... "And souls are perishing who haven't heard the truth, the gospel of Jesus Christ one time."

How? How?

God, help us to know Your will and do it with joy. And do it with joy.

In Proverbs 16:25 that I already quoted says, "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the ends thereof, the end thereof are the ways of death." And have you ever pondered why it uses a plural there?

The end thereof, end is singular, are the ways of death. And I think a good application of that is that even after we're born again, even after we have crossed the Jordan River, we've done that exchange. We've said, "God, I'm ready to deal. I'm ready to let You deal with the flesh in my life." And God stops the Jordan River, and you step in by faith. And God stops the Jordan River, and you bury those 12 stones of self. And God says, "Take 12 fresh stones out from where the priest's feet stood." And that's a memorial of what I'm doing for you here in overcoming your sinful self, your self-life. And then they had Gilgal, the circumcision right after that.

And you look at that and... I lost my thoughts there.

Where was I going with that?

Yes. So you've experienced God dealing with self in your life.

However, there's constantly new challenges that need to be conquered. Canaanites still on the frontiers that God will lead you to conquer if you'll follow. And we have a choice to make every time. We can make a league with them. We can put them under tribute, or we can do battle with them with God's help. We have a choice to make. And you know what happened when Israel started? At first, they conquered them, and then they settled down, you know, "Let's get our homesteads built up here." And they got careless about those enemies, about the Canaanites. And the Canaanites did just what God said they would do. They became thorns in their sides.

And they actually came back under the dominion of those Canaanites. And just like Proverbs 16:25 says, "There's a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." Anytime I say no to God's Spirit, I'm going to do it my way instead of Your way, death sets in.

I have a brother-in-law who just had a toe amputated two days ago. He's diabetic.

And necrosis sets in. The flesh starts to die. And eventually, it reaches a point where the doctor says, "You know what? If we let this on, it's going to kill you. We have to amputate it." And necrosis sets in. They have to cut it off.

That can happen at any point in my life and your life where we can revert back to self. It's a choice we must continually make.

And I just want to urge us to a life of total yieldedness, total surrender to our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a life of fruitfulness. It's a life that the flesh will not welcome.

But if you want your life to count for eternity, to count for the Lord Jesus Christ, I dare you to trust and obey, to just follow the Lord Jesus and His example.

I think it's J. Sidlo Baxter who calls the land of Canaan the land of fruit and fight. The land of fruit and fight. Yes, it is a land of milk and honey. It's also a land of fight.

What are your other options? To wander in the wilderness and aimless, wasted life. That's your other option.

And I urge all of us, including myself, to follow the Lord Jesus and yield up our will to Him.

Just consider the wilderness living to please myself rather than to delight my Lord. Consider the wilderness as a place of discouragement.

They said we can't do it. We may as well give up. Let's go back to Egypt. That's not God's will for any brother or sister here.

I don't know what you're struggling with or facing in your life. Maybe it looks to you like the giants are too big. You just can't do it.

It's a lie. It's a lie. There's a half-truth in it. You can't do it. But God hasn't called you to fight that battle by yourself. He's with you. Trust Him.

If you're discouraged this morning, you're about to say, "I'm done. I'm going back to Egypt. I'm going back to the world." Please don't do it. Don't do it. Satan is a liar. God has good things for you. He wants your life to be fruitful. He wants to use you.

The wilderness is a place... Living to please myself is a place of murmuring and complaining.

Have you ever noticed that some of the most thankful people are some of those that you'd think should be the least thankful?

Maybe they're not rich. Maybe they're even handicapped. Maybe, you know, they've got all sorts of reasons why they... You know, fleshly reasons why they should be complaining. And they're just spilling out thanksgiving to the Lord.

Tell you what, when you live to please yourself, you become a miserable, complaining person.

That's how the Israelites were in the wilderness. You open yourself to temptation to please your flesh, sexual indulgence,

when your goal is to please yourself rather than the Lord Jesus Christ.

There's victory, brother, sister. There's victory in Christ Jesus.

Not to talk about a life wasted on aimless and useless pursuits, pleasing yourself.

Cross the Jordan. Cross the Jordan. Take up the Ark of the Testimony of the Lord Jesus and step into the water. By faith, step into the water. It will part. There will be dry ground for you to cross over. The Lord is with you. He wants victory for you more than you want victory. He wants it for you.

And it will turn out to be a testimony to the glory and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Yes, there will be battles with the Canaanites, but God will help you. It is the land of milk and honey. Is your spiritual life barren?

Just go before the Lord and ask the Lord, "Lord, are there any areas where Your Spirit has been talking to me, and I've been resisting You?"

You know, there were times in the history of Israel after they conquered the land of Canaan.

There was a drought in the time of David for three years. And David finally sought the Lord after three years. He said, "God, what's going on?" And Jehovah answered, "He's faithful." If you really want to know, He's faithful. And He said, "It's because of Saul.

Israel had made a covenant with the Gibeonites that they wouldn't kill them. And Saul set out to kill them."

Israel was guilty, and David made that right. And the rain came again. God wants your life to be fruitful. God wants your spiritual life to prosper. It shouldn't be this dry, dull, "Yeah, I got to do this again. Got to go to church again." No, no. That's not what God has for you. He wants to fellowship with you.

Sweet, sweet fellowship. That's the honey. The land of Canaan is the land of Mount Zion. Joy-filled worship to the Lord. As you go up to Mount Zion, is this not Mount Zion? To worship the Lord with the saints.

It ought to be a joy-filled time as the saints worship God together.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank You for recording for us in Your precious Word the history of Israel.

Lord, now we are the Israel of God. Lord, would You help us not to be faithless, but believing. Lord, if there was ever a time... If there was ever a time when the enemy needs to know that there's a God in Israel, Lord, it's now.

Why should a heathen say, "Where is now their God?" You are the Almighty. Lord Jesus, You've risen from the dead. You didn't just rise from the dead to take us to heaven. You rose from the dead to give us victory that we might walk in resurrection power, Lord. Oh God, help me, Lord, and help us to trust You and say, "Not my will, thy will be done."

To believe You, Lord, that as we

allow You to deal with self in our lives, You're not going to destroy us or make our lives dull and barren. Just the opposite, Lord.

Just the opposite. Lord, help us to trust You. Thank You in Jesus' name. Amen.