The Believer's Hope — Major Ian Thomas

Assurance Through Christ's Atoning Death

Some of you, hopefully, come in these days for the first time to know the Lord Jesus personally as your Savior. When you arrived a week ago, you weren't quite sure whether you were at peace with God, had no rich assurance in your heart, but you've come to know how simple, how gloriously simple it is, in recognition of your need to apply all the adequacy of His atoning death, and by faith appropriate it.

What you don't deserve, but what God in grace and mercy has provided. And we rejoice in this assurance. The Bible rings with certainty. And if there's anybody who maybe only has visited you today, come for the very first time, it may be that this is God's appointment for you to come to know, and know that you're not certain that Christ has redeemed you.

Nowhere in the Bible are we left in any ambiguity as to God's concern for us and God's purposes in redemption towards us. I'm sure some of you will remember that choice servant of God who's now with the Lord Jesus, Captain Reginald Wallace.

And I remember on one occasion, it was my joy to know him well and his family and his boys who are ministering today in England, I remember on one occasion how he quoted the verse of the hymn that he said should never have been written.

It went something like this, There is a thing I long to know. Oft it gives me anxious thought. Do I love my Lord or no? Am I His or am I not? Can you imagine anything more pathetic than that? And he went on to say, if you were to go home to your wife, if you happen to have one, and seek her out in some little pet spot in the home where she likes to while away her hours, the kitchen or the washroom or somewhere like that, and you were to go out with her with a dreamy languid look in your eyes and wringing your hands, you would have said, darling, there is a thing I long to know.

Oft it gives me anxious thought. Do I love you dear or no? Or am I not? Well, he said she'd probably reach for the heaviest prying pan that she could find and in a matter of seconds you wouldn't be in any doubt at all.

She'd probably say to you, it's not faith you need dear, just assurance, and proceed to administer it. Well now, there are some of you who come out of that languid state and you're rejoicing, I know whom I have believed.

Not what I have believed. Some of you knew what you believed when you came but didn't know whom you have believed. But now you can say, I know whom I have believed. And I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

Well we rejoice with you, those of whom we may welcome as our newborn brothers and sisters in Christ. You've gone through the door, now with us go on into all the fullness of God's gracious provision.

Divine Life and Total Dependence

And there are some who've been making this discovery this week. You came here defeated, with a sense of impotence and powerlessness. You were dried up inside. You've been trying so hard, desperately serving Christ to the best of your ability.

And during these days God has been showing you the principle of life. The principle of divine action. That unrelenting attitude of total dependence upon the one who alone is capable and willing. Both to will and to do that which is his good pleasure, innocent truth.

And I, at the close of this session, want to gather in a few prayers. Because it is sometimes possible, as some have told me as they've come personally, to know the principle. I see it clearly now. But just how do I apply this principle?

If I leave Katoomba and go down into the valley. Now, having come to grasp what God had in mind when he gave his son to me. Dying for what I've done. To rise again from the dead, to live in me. Taking the place of what I am.

Now, it's the practice of the principle. And if there was one last word more than another I would wish to bring to you. It is a message of appropriation. To step out and act on the assumption of everything that God has been pleased to tell you is true.

Almost in recklessness. To stand back and let God vindicate his utter integrity. To work it out. Work out your own salvation, says Paul. Not work for your salvation, but work out your salvation. With fear and tremor.

Recognizing that it's God who vindicates his sufficiency in you and through you. And so I thought it would be a good thing for us to examine a very vivid illustration that God gives us in the Old Testament.

And there's no better part of the Bible to go to for illustrations of the deepest spiritual truths that concern our walk in Christ than the Old Testament. If you may be during these days for the first time have grasped the principle of Christ's indwelling, you've got a new Old Testament.

It's just bursting to tell you of a living Christ. And how those who walk by faith are to appropriate the adequacy, the overwhelming adequacy of the God who dwells within. Now, the history of God's dealings with man.

Those who have been his choicest servants have graduated out of despair. Graduated out of failure. And defeat. And frustration. That's a wonderfully encouraging thing. When we do this we're always surprised.

When we discover that God isn't surprised. We look into our own hearts and utterly shocked with ourselves, at last timidly we come and tell God all about us. And there he is waiting, he says, I've known it all the time.

I've just been waiting for you to find out about yourself. And admit it. I can't tell you what a relief it was to me when for the first time I realized that God had never expected of me at any time anything than the hopeless failure that I'd been.

What a relief. And for all this time I've been trying to present myself to God in a better light. And all the time God was waiting for me to give up the struggle. And capitulate and recognize in abject defeat and despair that I was beyond remedy apart from a divine intervention.

This was certainly true of Abraham when 15 frustrated years were wasted in trying to squeeze blessing out of an Ishmael. Certainly true of Moses after he'd been isolated in the backside of the wilderness, the desert there.

Until at last by faith he stepped into the principle of the God who dwells in any old bush. And any old bush will do so long as God is in it. Certainly true of Jacob. It was certainly true of Peter. What a wonderful day for him when the cock crowed in the bitterness of his despair.

And a new dawn broke. As through Pentecost he entered into that unique relationship with the Lord Jesus that would release the divine power of the risen Lord through his redeemed humanity. It's certainly been the history of almost all the names down the Christian story that have come to be household words.

And it's come to be true of some of you. Amongst them is numbered Jehoshaphat. And the story that we're going to consider for a few moments is the 19th chapter, 2nd Chronicles, 2 Chronicles chapter 19.

Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, returned to his house in peace to Jerusalem. And Jehu, the son of Hanani, the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord?

Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord. Nevertheless there are good things found in thee in that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land and hast prepared thine heart to seek God. God is meeting with Jehoshaphat in an entirely new way.

Jehoshaphat's False Alliance with Ahab

For he's known the bitterness, the awful bitterness of hopeless failure and defeat. And out of this bitter experience of his own defeat, he's made the wonderful discovery of the divine principle that is to operate in the hearts of men.

The story of his defeat is recorded for us in the preceding chapter. It begins, as the story of every defeat begins, with a false affinity. Chapter 18, verse 1. Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance and he joined affinity with Ahab.

That was the false affinity. He made an unholy alliance with one whom God had sentenced to death. Ahab. A wicked king as we've been hearing. But one who specifically was under God's sentence of death for the murder of Naboth.

You remember the sentence that God passed upon him. You find it in the first book of Kings in the 21st chapter. It came from the lips of God's faithful servant about whom we've been hearing. 1 Kings 21, 17.

The word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, which is in Samaria. Behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone down to possess it.

Thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, hast thou killed and also taken possession. Thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord. In the place where dogs lick the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.

And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? He answered, I found thee. Because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord. And it was with this man that Jehoshaphat entered into this unholy alliance.

In the wonderful picture language that God gives us in the Bible, we recognize in this that unholy alliance into which we by nature as the fallen seed of the fallen Adam are entered. With that hostile sin principle of satanic origin, this carnal mind that is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, this flesh that is at enmity with God our maker.

Jehoshaphat joined affinity with Ahab. After certain years, it says in verse 2 of 2 Chronicles chapter 18, after certain years he went down to Ahab to Samaria, and Ahab killed sheep and oxen for him in abundance and for the people that he had with him, and he persuaded him to go up with him to Ramoth Gilead.

And Ahab king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, Wilt thou go with me to Ramoth Gilead? He answered, I am as thou art, my people as thy people, and we will be with thee in the war. Without one moment's thought of his own responsibility, his own relationship towards God, he makes his decision, joins affinity with Ahab in this attack upon the Syrians that Ramoth Gilead might be recovered for Israel.

Interesting that it was against Ramoth Gilead that Ahab should have planned this campaign. For Ramoth Gilead was one of the six cities of refuge that God had given by his command to the Levites amongst the 48 cities that were to be their portion of the inheritance of the land.

The six cities of refuge which were designated by God for those who were men's slaves, but without wicked intent. And of all the places that this murderer should have wanted to recapture for his own use was the place of refuge for men's slaves.

Seeking a place of refuge. Self, the flesh is always seeking a place of refuge, a place where it can survive. This is the satanic genius. The devil doesn't object unduly if you insist on being a Christian.

He can't do much about it. But his agency within you must survive at all costs. And that's why it's so easy to join in this unholy alliance and make this false affinity with evil. Because the flesh within will encourage you to do your uttermost, to do your best, bend all your resources in God's service, if only, if only the flesh can survive.

Jehoshaphat wasn't too happy about this. He said to the king of Israel in verse 4, Inquire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord today. And the king inquired, Shall we go to Ramoth, Gilead, to battle of four hundred prophets?

And they said, Go up, for God will deliver thee into the king's hand. They were yes men. They had no doubt, saith the Lord, from God himself. But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides that we might inquire of him?

He was trying to reconcile a false affinity to a bad conscience. He wasn't really at ease. There was really in his heart no sense of vocation, no sense of commission. There's never real peace. There's never real rest in the heart of any man or woman, or boy or girl for that matter, who seeks to serve Christ without a real appropriation of the principle's divine action.

You engage in every kind of warfare for God, maybe, but there isn't that spontaneous spiritual initiative that stems from God himself. We're not going to examine too much the story of his defeat. This is how it began.

When the voice, that lonely voice of God, raised by Micaiah the prophet, warned them of God's impending judgment, the tragic thing was that Jehoshaphat still allied himself with Ahab when Ahab threw him into jail.

And said, this fellow in the prison, feed him with bread of affliction, with water of affliction, until I return in peace. And Jehoshaphat, to maintain this affinity, had to title the voice of God to his own heart.

And Jehoshaphat went down to battle with Ahab. And the king of Israel, verse 29, we're told, said to Jehoshaphat, I'll disguise myself, and I'll go to the battle, but put thou on thy robes. And so this wicked man disguised himself, as the flesh will always disguise itself if it can.

And the Syrians, thinking Jehoshaphat to be the king of Israel, pressed in upon him. Came to part, verse 31, when the captains of the chariot saw Jehoshaphat, that they said it's the king of Israel. Therefore they compassed about him to fight.

And in this, his moment of utter extremity, Jehoshaphat cried out in despair. And the Lord helped him. And God moved them to depart from him. This was the lowest point to which he had sung. In a sense of utter loneliness, recognizing himself to be in the wrong company, despairing of life itself, he cried to God.

And God helped him. And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the heart, and about the time of the sun going down, he died. Because God's judgment must always fall upon the flesh, no matter how it may disguise itself before men, it can never disguise itself before God.

And as a man drew a bow at a venture, pierced between the very cracks of its armor, and Ahab died. And the dogs licked his blood, as they swilled out the blood-stained chariot, in which he had been traveling.

Repentance and the Rejection of Self-Sufficiency

Now it was out of this bitter experience, that God's word came to Jehoshaphat. In chapter 19, verse 2. Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord. Therefore is wrath upon thee. We've been coming to understand this, and its spiritual significance, for you and for me during these days, that we've been spending together.

That in our flesh dwelleth no good thing. That all that we are, and all that we have, and all that we can do, apart from the Lord Jesus himself, is something which God must of necessity repudiate. It's under the sentence of death.

It's fit for nothing but the cross. It's fit for nothing but to be taken in God's eternal economy, with the Lord Jesus into the place where they buried him, and to be left buried. Rejected and repudiated.

And it takes sometimes years of bitterness and defeat, before at last we're prepared to recognize, that we ourselves are as wicked as the things we do. This is true repentance. Not only to be sorry for what I've done, but to be sorry for what I am.

To recognize that in me dwells no good thing. And from this time on, as God's word comes to his heart, Jehoshaphat learns a new principle. And it is that his life as from now on, can never be lived under any circumstances, except by virtue of an unrelenting relationship in responsibility towards his God.

And he set judges, it says in chapter 19 and verse 5, in the land throughout all the cities of Judah, city by city. And he said to the judges, take heed what you do, for you judge not for man, but for the Lord who's with you in the judgment.

From now on, all your judgment must be identified with God's judgment. There must be an absolute identity between you and him. Now let the fear of the Lord be upon you. So take heed and do it, for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect to persons, nor taking of gifts.

Verse 9, he charged them saying, Thus shall ye do in the fear of the Lord, faithfully and with a perfect heart. And what cause soever shall come to you of your brethren, that dwell in their cities between blood and blood, between law and commandments, statutes and judgments, no matter what situation as from now on arises, no matter what the incident may be, no matter what the problem that must be resolved, no matter what the new responsibility, you must assume ye shall even warn them that they trespass not against the Lord.

He is the one who in every circumstance now is to be reckoned with. And we are no longer at liberty under any circumstances to do what is right, let alone what is wrong, in our own eyes. Deal courageously.

Last part of verse 11,. And the Lord shall be with the good. And this now is to be the principle of life for Jehoshaphat. God forbid, he says, that I should ever again, deliberately with my eyes open, enter into a false affinity with that which God hates.

How can I help the ungodly? How can I love them that hate the Lord? Is that the place to which God has brought you in these days? I see now that the principle of life for me is that I am utterly committed to the Lord Jesus.

Utterly to Him and to Him alone. And I am committed to Him in such a way that I am committed to all that to which He and He alone is committed in me. He is the one with whom I now reckon. Love and respect as I may my fellow men, and without being pig-headedly offhand insofar as their counsel or advice may be to me, good or bad, I recognize that I have from now on to reckon with only one person who has redeemed me through His death, reconciled me to a holy God, and has come Himself by His gracious Holy Spirit to live out His life through me and tell the story in terms of my humanity that in the eternal counsels of God in the ages of the past has been written for me, just for me.

Reckoning with Christ as Life

I'm going to reckon with Christ. I'm going to reckon with Christ. That's the principle to which God brings us out of the graduation of despair. I've reckoned with my friends, I've reckoned with my church, I've reckoned with my personality, I've reckoned with my scholarship, I've reckoned with my training, I've reckoned with my family, I've reckoned with my godly upbringing, and yet I fail.

Because in all this I didn't reckon with Christ. It isn't that I wasn't sincere, it isn't that I didn't really try, it isn't that I had holy ambitions, but I made the one elementary fatal blunder. I just did not reckon with Christ.

I accepted Him as the way, the one who died for me, I preached Him fanatically as the truth, and yet, miracle of all miracles, wonder of all wonders, stupidly, blindly, I never once reckoned with Him as my life.

Yet, I'd never learned the principle of stepping out of a situation instinctively, automatically, in the recognition of the fact that the only person competent in that situation was the Lord Jesus living in me.

But now I see it. It's the principle of divine action. It's the faith that releases God through me at any time, day or night, come what may. Now, this was the principle to which God led Jehoshaphat. Well, that was the theory.

He'd set his heart now to seek God in this sense, on these terms of reference. The question now that remained was how is it going to work out in practice? It's one thing to make his resolution, it's one thing to give mental consent to the principle that has been enunciated, but what happens when the first big test comes?

What's the procedure? Now, that may be the question that's in your mind. It seems so easy here. The words are still ringing in your ears that you've been hearing from the platform and the words are still fresh in your heart that you've been reading as you've studied the word of God in some quiet spots, but you say, when I'm back in the bustle, when I'm precipitated suddenly into the bundle of life again, and everybody's rubbing shoulders and jogging me, when the next big test comes, what's the procedure?

Jehoshaphat's Crisis and the Battle Belonging to God

Well, it's thrilling to read the procedure in chapter 20. Out of defeat in chapter 18, to discover the principle of divine action in chapter 19, into the practice of faith, the practice of the presence of God, the appropriation that takes and says thank you and sees God vindicate his integrity and prove himself indeed more than conqueror through the man that trusted him.

That's what we discover in chapter 20. It came to pass after this also that the children of Moab and the children of Ammon and with them other besides the Ammonites came against Jehoshaphat to battle.

Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat saying there cometh a great mountain against thee from beyond the sea on this side, Syria. Behold, there be enhazons and tamarks, witches and deadly. That was bad news.

This was calculated under the old terms of reference at any time to produce panic in the camp. This was the threat of a major disaster of the greatest magnitude. But now you see there's an entirely new attitude being adopted because now there's an entirely new principle to apply.

Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. Instinctively at once he said this isn't my situation. This isn't my problem. This isn't a threat to me.

This is to be referred and related at once to my God. Have you learned that yet? Do you realize that this is going to be the outworking of what God has worked in? I don't know what the next test will be.

It may be something quite tiny or insignificant as you might humanly speaking measure it. It might be some overwhelming calamity that suddenly breaks on your head like a tropical thunderstorm. But this is the attitude to be applied in relation to the principle now adopted.

No panic. No fuss. You step right back. This must be referred at once to the Lord Jesus who is my life. In speaking to some of you and chatting with others personally I've said to you don't keep asking God for help.

And I can see your eye lighting up and say well look there you are you see. I was right after all wasn't I? Yes but you see it depends what you mean by asking for help. There's a world of difference between begging and appropriation.

It isn't the language that you use. It's the attitude of your heart. I suppose if my boy needed something very very urgently he'd come and ask me but he wouldn't be begging for it. At least I hope he will.

There wouldn't be any need for him to beg. If it was something really legitimate I'd be more than happy within my capacity to meet his need. You see to ask help of God and we shall see how Jehoshaphat did it in a moment to ask help of God is not to plead with him as though he were unconcerned.

As I've said to some importunity is not a pistol at God's head. Importunity is your need confidently placed at his feet and you simply come and remind him that you've placed it there to leave it there.

That's importunity. Jehoshaphat now knew his resources. He stood in the congregation of Judah verse 5 and continuing in verse 6 he said Oh Lord God of our fathers art not thou God in heaven rulest thou not over all the kingdoms of the heath in thine hand is there not power and might so that none is able to withstand it.

Ah now he's on firm ground. He begins by an absolute unashamed affirmation of the utter overwhelming adequacy of God. Art not thou God in heaven. What are we told in Hebrews chapter 11 he that cometh to God must first believe that God is.

So he begins at the point where faith begins. God is. But he goes beyond that now. Verse 7. Art not thou our God. In other words the God who is is my God. That he that cometh to God must first believe that God is and that he is a rewarder who did drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend forever.

He's taken trouble too to examine his Bible. The record of God's past dealings with his people he's on sure ground now. This land being threatened had been given by God never deserved, never earned it was something that God had given his friends forever.

And he is now invoking the integrity of a God who is not a man that he should lie. And they dwelt therein and they have built thee a sanctuary saying if when evil cometh upon us as the sword, judgment, pestilence, famine any single circumstance that could ever enter into the minds of man as they stand in thy presence for thy name is in this house and cry unto thee then they said in our affliction as we cry thou wilt hear and help.

Now he said having got the decks well cleared and they were well cleared weren't they? He's affirmed his absolute confidence in the fact that God is that the God who is is unconquerable not able to withstand it.

He has identified by faith the God who is the unconquerable God with himself and his people. He's affirmed the fact that they're in the land that he, God, gave them forever. Now he says behold the children of Adam and Moab and Mount Seir whom thou wouldst not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt but they turned from them and destroyed them not.

Behold I say to come to cast us out of thy possession we're only stewards it's thy possession which thou hast given us to inherit. See how they reward us to come to cast us out of thy possession which thou hast given us to inherit.

Affirmation of the person of God identity of that personal God with their interests because their interests are bound up with God's interests and then after that positive affirmation he simply lays the situation on the table and says behold just look at it God behold I say verse 12 O our God wilt thou not judge us?

We have no might against this great coming that cometh against us neither know we what to do. I am nothing. I have nothing. I can do nothing. I repondee. Now that's appropriation that's how he asked for help.

Now it's begging about that wasn't it? The whole thing was a positive affirmation of faith a complete repudiation of self-sufficiency. He didn't ask God to give them a little help in their resources what they were doing.

He didn't say God look what we're doing we're doing our very best see but we need a little shout from behind. That wasn't what he said. He says God. We have no might against this great coming that cometh against us.

We haven't a clue as to what to do. Our eyes repondee. We're simply waiting for instructions. And all Judas stood before the Lord with their little heads. Well now whose responsibility was it from that moment?

Verse 14. Upon Jehaziel a Levite of the sons of Asaph came the spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation. And he said hearken ye all Judah and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem and thou King Jehoshaphat.

Thus saith the Lord unto you. Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude. The battle is not yours but God's. In other words God's instant response to the affirmation of faith that repudiated the whole situation unreservedly upon God.

God's instant response was Alright. Jehoshaphat. Take it. Take it. No panic. Don't be dismayed. Don't be fearful. I've got this thing in hand. The battle's not yours. You've given it away. You've given it to God.

Now it's his. That's the rest of faith. He that has entered into rest has ceased from his own words. As every new situation arises instantly you give it away. Who to? The Lord Jesus. Isn't that great?

You're confronted with a tremendous worry. Well whose worry is it? Can't be yours because you are crucified with Christ and dead men don't worry. Crucified with Christ nevertheless you live. Not you but Christ lives in you.

So whose worry is it? Christ's. But he never worries. Because he always knows the end from the beginning. He always knows at any given moment in any set circumstance exactly what he's going to do. He may not let you know for a week.

May not let you know for three months. But he won't be inactive. But the wonderful thing is it's not your worry. The moment you give yourself the right to worry you give yourself the right to live. And God has only given you the right to die.

So that you do not reckon with yourself. You reckon with God who raises the dead. Tomorrow, verse 16. Go ye down against them. Behold they come up by the cliff of Diz. Ye shall find them at the end of the brook before the wilderness of Zuru.

Seek the enemy out and march, God said. This is one of the paradoxes of the Bible. Rest in faith is never inactivity. It's Christ activity. The Lord Jesus affirms as we have already seen that he could do nothing apart from the Father.

But that doesn't mean to say that the Lord Jesus Christ was pathetically lethargic. No. It simply means that in the whole activity of the lifetime of the Son of God it was the activity of the Father through the Son and it kept him busy almost day and night for 33 years.

And as you rest and relax into Christ don't imagine that it's going to make you languish. Some folk often object on this very score. They say if you talk to people like this they'll become far too subjective and they won't have any vision they won't have any concern for the lost they'll just put their feet on the mantelpiece and lean back into an armchair.

But how blasphemous. How blasphemous to suggest that the moment I present my body unreservedly in total availability to the Lord Jesus that he in me will be totally unconcerned about the lost. What a blasphemous suggestion.

That the moment I sign myself over as totally available to the one alone who has the right to direct the conflict that he won't be on the job. Oh my Christian friend, I'm going to tell you this that if you make yourself out like a blank check to the Lord Jesus Christ and let him expand you it'll keep you busy day and night as you never knew it before but always in perfect rest.

And of course you'll be tired but always inwardly at peace. You'll know that strange poise that in the midst of a multitude of things that have to be done keep you serenely calm and instead of living on your nerves and everybody else's you rest in the Christ.

And it doesn't matter how baffling the situation no, no matter how impossible the situation you quietly say thank you Lord and if it's a brick wall you've got to walk through you walk straight at it and right through it because God will make quite sure there's a hole just when you get there.

Moses, Joshua, and Faith in Action

Now, this is what the saints of God learned, isn't it? Think how Moses tried to deal with the situation of his people in bondage ended up only by murdering one Egyptian whom he couldn't even bury because he left his toes sticking out of the sand.

And 40 years later 40 years of bitterness, of frustration futility, sense of impotence way in the backside looking after a handful of cattle after 40 years at last when he steps back into God's story a story that God had already told Abraham 400 years before and Moses now steps back into it and he leads his people out by command and suddenly he's confronted with the Red Sea in front and the Egyptian following hard behind.

Was there ever a dilemma like that? Death to the front of me and death behind me and no way of escape either side. But no panic. No panic now because Moses refused to accept any responsibility whatever for that situation.

He simply looked up into God's face and said God, I started telling my story 40 years ago and it wasn't a very good one. It landed me in the backside of the wilderness. Now, the situation is, to say the least, a little sticky but this isn't my story this is your story and yours is the next chapter.

Red Sea in front. Egyptians behind and all the folk around me are waiting for the next chapter. Over to you. And God said, thanks Moses. That's what I like to hear. That's the language of somebody who's learned the principles of divine action.

You're quite right. Death in front of you. Death behind you. Quick march. In you go. And you'll discover that the problem that battles you the problem from which you, in your own strength and in your own wisdom would inevitably flee.

You'll find the very problem that threatens you in front of you the deep depths of the Red Sea. You'll find that that problem is the solution of your problem. And on dry ground, by divine intervention raised from the place of death as they were baptized into Moses going through the Red Sea to be poised upon the threshold of a new life and a new land which the Egyptians are saying to do well dry ground.

And when God told his story he didn't just bury one with his toe sticking out he put the whole lot in and buried them all in one. That's how God tells his story. That's what Jehoshaphat found out. God said, I've taken over.

Isn't it a thrilling and a wonderful thing? This is the principle that you'll find again and again even when Joshua led them into the promised land. And the first big problem confronted them. Now it's a question of working it out in practice.

It was all very well listening to sermons on Canaan. But here we are. And there's Jericho right in front of us. And Joshua, not quite yet sure of how to put the principle into practice went out and made a reconnaissance as to how now we're going to deal with Jericho.