Practical and powerful devotional breakout series #2

GYC West 2017 - REFLECT: The Daily Experience

<p>Practical and powerful devotional breakout series #2</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

GYC West

Breakouts

Zachary Page

1. Desiring God

2. Thick With the Almighty

3. The Statesman

4. Loving Jesus

We long for an experience that's beyond anything that we've experienced before.

Lord, as we look at what is 1 of my favorite stories in the whole Bible, We talk about how it's changed my life.

I just pray that you would change our lives even more, that you would keep us walking more and more closely with you.

We just long to know you, to serve you with our whole hearts for our whole lives.

Lord please guide us, speak to us through the power of your Holy Spirit.

During this time we pray in Jesus name, Amen.

On this ridge there was a silhouette, a lone figure there.

It was 1 of those days with a huge storm.

I don't know how many of you have seen huge storms.

You might get them a little bit more up north up near Shasta.

Do you guys sometimes get big storms up there?

We don't get as many of them down further south in California, but I remember when my wife and I were in Michigan that we would go into the bedroom and we had this big window and when there was lightning and thunder outside it was so much fun to watch the huge storms outside.

Well this was a storm like no other, like no storm that I have experienced before.

There was this man standing on the ridge, and as he stood there, there were tons of emotions flooding through him.

I imagine at that point he was feeling extremely tired.

Imagine at that point that he was feeling extremely excited because God was doing phenomenal things.

Imagine at that point he was also feeling this intense earnestness that God would do something more.

As Joshua stood there on the ridge, he was looking down at the Midianites, who God had brought this storm and was doing 1 of the greatest miracles in the entire Bible, but yet he was not satisfied.

Let's look at this story really fast in Joshua chapter 10.

Joshua was 1 chosen by Moses to bring the children of Israel into the land of Canaan.

In Joshua chapter 10 we see him with his people facing the biggest challenge that they faced so far.

So in the previous chapter we had the Gibeonites who made this league with the Israelites by lying to them, but they honor that league that they had made.

And so in verse 1, it says, "'Now it came to pass when Adonai Zedek, "'king of Jerusalem, heard how Joshua had taken Ai "'and utterly destroyed it, "'as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king.

And how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were among them, that they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, like 1 of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all its men were mighty." So here's this mighty city that is in league with the Israelites, and they're feeling really nervous about this.

Therefore Adonai Zedek, king of Jerusalem, sent to Hoham, king of Hebron, Pyram, king of Jermuth, Japhia, king of Lachish, and Davir, king of Eglon, saying, Come up to me and help me that we may attack Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel." So these 5 kings gather their 5 armies together and they are going to crush out Gibeah.

And as they go to do this, Gibeah sends a frantic message to Joshua saying, we need your help, please come help us.

And so Joshua, rather than just immediately responding, he prays about it, and he gets this message from God saying, in let's see, verse 8 it says, And the Lord said to Joshua, do not fear them, for I have delivered them into your hand.

Not a man of them shall stand before you." This gives this incredible promise that not 1 of these people will stand before him.

Now the previous verse tells us what he did next.

He and all the people of war with him and all the mighty men of valor.

Now this path from Gilgal to Gibeah was 16 and a half miles.

Have any of you ever gone on a 16 and a half mile hike?

The whole way was an ascent, And then it says this, verse 9, Joshua therefore came upon them suddenly, having marched all night from Gilgal.

This was an all night, 16 and a half mile march to get to Gibeah to help out their new colleagues there.

So they get there, they have to be exhausted at that point, but immediately they go into battle.

They begin to fight against these 5 kings, and verse 10 tells us, "'So the Lord routed them before Israel, "'killed them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, chased them along the road that goes to Beth Horon, and struck them down as far as Ezekiah and Makeda.

And it happened as they fled before Israel and were on the descent of Beth Horon that the Lord cast down large hailstones from heaven on them as far as Ezekiel and they died.

There were more who died from the hailstones than the children of Israel killed with the sword." Now first of all as we read this we have to remember that in Genesis 15 God had said to Abraham, your people are going to become slaves in Israel for 400 years because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.

So when we see God pouring out judgment on people, Their iniquity is finally complete.

They finally totally rejected God and their existence has become harmful to the planet.

Now, Gibeon is this city that was this massive fortress city that was really important for the whole land of Canaan because it had the access to these passes, and 1 of those was the Pass of Beth Horon.

And this pass is the 1 that they chased the army up.

Beth Horon was another 6 and a half miles up this pass.

It's another 2, 000 feet in elevation gain.

So by the time they get to the top of this pass, they have been hiking all night long and now they've been fighting plus hiking up this mountain pass.

That would be about 22, 23 miles at this point.

Imagine how exhausted you would feel at that point, but imagine how excited you'd feel at that point because here God is sending hailstones down, he's totally wiping them out, he's fulfilling his promise to you and you're thinking, God's done exactly what he promised.

So that's me, and I'm standing there on that pass.

I'm gonna go home now and get some sleep.

Joshua is there on this pass, and as he looks out, he sees that the sun is about to go down in the sky.

And he sees that the Amorites, there are still Amorites who have not yet been destroyed.

And as he looks out, and he remembers the promise of God that he has, that not 1 man will stand before him, he does the most audacious thing I think in the entire Bible.

Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in that day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites.

I love how it just says that he spoke to the Lord, like he's telling God this is the deal.

Spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun stands still over Gibeon, and moon in the valley of Ejlon.

So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the people had revenge upon their enemies.

Is it not written in the book of Jasher, so the sun stood still in the midst of heaven and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day?

And there's been no day like it before it or after that the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.

What gives a person the audacity to pray a prayer like that?

To say to the Sun, I mean imagine you're doing your yard work on Friday, it's getting close to sundown and you're looking at the Sun and you're thinking, I just don't have enough time to get all that I want done, so Sun, stand still.

That'd be a pretty crazy prayer to pray, wouldn't it?

And if you think about it, at a bare minimum what would have had to happen, this is probably the biggest physical miracle in the entire Bible.

Because in order for this to take place, a bare minimum, the Earth had to stop spinning.

So I was reading on the NASA website, if the Earth stopped spinning, the atmosphere would still be spinning and it spins at a thousand miles per hour and the whole Earth is spinning at a thousand miles per hour.

So if the earth suddenly stopped rotating, there would be a thousand mile per hour winds that would, you imagine what a hurricane is like, it's nowhere near a thousand mile per hour winds.

It would immediately shear everything off the planet and make it just a round ball.

You would have to have the moon be held in its place from its orbit around the earth.

Huge miracle, like beyond anything that we can really comprehend physically is taking place.

He stops the atmosphere, he stops the moon, he stops all of these things in place for 24 hours, because 1 man needed more time for his army.

He didn't have enough time to get the job done, and he said, God, you promised I'd get the job done.

It's not getting done, so I need more time.

Stop the sun, stop the moon in its place.

What gave Joshua the audacity to pray a prayer like that, to have that close of a connection with Jesus that he knew that Jesus would do whatever it took to do what he's asking for?

And sometimes when we read in the Bible, we see stories like this, and it's like somebody just pops up on the scene, and they have this amazing experience, and we think, well maybe someday that'll happen with me.

But I want to know what is it that led Joshua up to this place?

I remember it was 1 of the first ministers meetings that I was at in Central California.

We were up at Leone Meadows and it was after 1 of the evening meetings And as we were sitting there, as I looked around the room, I just felt out of place.

I was young in ministry, there was a lot of, like, at that time, kind of famous pastors in our conference.

There was Jeffrey Rosario was there, David Asherick was there, and just a bunch of people were talking and interacting and stuff.

Series

Breakouts

2. Thick With the Almighty

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

The Word of God

The Flawed Word, Part 2

37m

3rd Quarter Sabbath School 2023: Ephesians

12 “The Call to Stand”

19m

Come Out! - Raising Lazarus, Part 3

42m

Prophecy Made Simple

1. How to Study the Bible

49m

Learning from MRSA

47m

Intensive: The Life of the Plants Is in the Sap

The Life of the Plants Is in the Sap- Part 6

48m

A Slave's Redemption

A Slave’s Redemption Part 1

33m

Acts

The Gospel in Samaria

22m

The Ascension of Christ

1h 3m

Brian Hindman Weekend

The Secret of Spiritual Growth

46m

Facing the Critic

4. Facing the Critic: No Commandment to Keep the Sabbath in Genesis

1h 13m

The Prayer Shift For 2026

1h

Sound Doctrine