Joshua 7, we have a story of course about the children of Israel being defeated in Ai.
Now, just to bring you up to speed in the story, this is right after the great victory that they had in Jericho
where they marched around the city seven times, remember, and they blew the trumpets and the walls fell down
and they ran in and defeated the enemy.
Now, Jericho was considered an unbeatable enemy.
I mean, they had this fortress, these walls, and that was a huge victory, it was a great miracle of God.
So, they've just finished up this great victory and now it comes to Ai.
Now, it says in verse 1 of chapter 7,
But the children of Israel committed trespass in the accursed thing,
for Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdai, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah,
took of the accursed thing, and anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel.
But they don't know that.
This is just one guy has stolen something that belonged to the Lord, okay?
And this is one guy, they don't know that, so they're still just excited about the victory and they're going to go to beat Ai.
Watch what they say after in verse 2 they scoped out the enemy.
It says in verse 3,
And they returned to Joshua and said unto him,
Let not all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up in spite Ai,
and make not all the people to labor thither for they are but few.
So, these guys give Joshua advice, they look at this enemy Ai and say,
This is a small enemy, this is going to be a piece of cake.
Don't make everybody go over there, don't bring the whole army,
just two or three thousand guys will do plenty to defeat these people.
Of course they bring the two or three thousand troops, they get defeated by Ai,
thirty-six men die, and it's just a shameful retreat because they're just scattered and running away,
and basically it's going to make everybody in the whole land hear about this,
and it's going to embolden them to attack Israel.
So, even though only thirty-six die, it's still thirty-six people, and it's a major defeat.
It's a major shame to them.
Now, look if you would at Joshua chapter 8 verse 1.
Look over to chapter 8 verse 1.
This is after all is said and done, after they get rid of Achan,
they get rid of the problem, and everything's good, and God's pleased with them again.
Look at chapter 8 verse 1, it says,
And the Lord said unto Joshua,
Fear not, neither be thou dismayed.
Watch what he says,
Take all the people of Amor with thee, and arise, go up to Ai.
See, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land.
Now, was it God's plan for just some of the people to go fight?
Two or three thousand? No.
He said, take everybody, bring the whole group.
Now, what I want to preach about this morning, I'm going to talk about this story,
but I want to preach about the effect of the individual upon the group.
You know, when we think about our church, our church is a group.
It's an assembly, it's a congregation here, but it's made up of individuals, okay?
And what I want to talk about this morning is what effect do the individuals here
that make up our church or make up any organization,
what effect do the individuals have upon the group?
First of all, we see here the effect of not everyone pitching in, not everyone in the battle.
You see, this was a battle that God wanted everybody to be involved in.
And yet, their attitude was, look at verse 3 at the end,
make not all the people to labor thither.
Basically, their plan was just to have a few laborers,
and not to make everybody do the really hard work, not to make everybody do the labor,
but just to have a few people there, whereas God's plan was, no, take everybody.
Get everybody doing the work.
Now, you can keep your finger in Joshua 7, go to the book of Acts,
because in the book of Acts, this is in the New Testament,
the fifth book in the New Testament.
The book of Acts, we see the early church in Jerusalem,
and the great victories they're having, just thousands and thousands of people getting saved,
and a whole bunch of people getting baptized, and the church is thriving and growing,
and all these great things are happening.
Why was it that the early church was so successful?
I'll show you why.
Look at Acts chapter 1, verse 14.
It says, these, and let's talk about the early church, the disciples,
these all continued, what are the next three words?
With one accord in prayer and supplication with the women,
and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.
Look at chapter 2, verse 1.
It says, and when the day of Pentecost was fully come,
they were all with one accord in one place.
Flip over to Acts 4, verse 24.
It says, and when they had heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord,
and said, Lord, thou art God, which has made heaven and earth and the sea,
and all within them is, they go on and continue to pray.
Look at verse 31.
And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together,
and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost,
and they spake the word of God with boldness.
Look at chapter 5, verse 12.
It says, and by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people,
and they were all with one accord in Solomon's port.
So you see, just over and over again, being repeated, the unity that they had.
How they were all with one accord, they were all in one place,
they all had the same vision, the same attitude, they were all on the same page,
they were all there in the day of Pentecost, they were all doing the work.
That is why they had such great success, because of the unity that they had.
Now look, unity is great.
Within the local church, having a unified spirit and a unified attitude,
now I'm not saying be unified with every Christian in this whole world,
because a lot of people today will say, oh, unity, let's join up with the Presbyterians and we'll call that unity.
No, I'm not going to join up with some hyper-Calvinistic false teacher, Presbyterian, or join up.
And you know, that's what this big city fest thing is all about, that you see everywhere.
I went soul-winding, and you know, sorry to step on people's toes, I'm sorry.
I was out soul-winding in Awatukee this week, and I spent hours and hours in this neighborhood,
and everybody in that neighborhood went to Mountain View Lutheran Church, Mountain View Lutheran Church,
Mountain View Lutheran Church, and over and over again.
And not one person who went to Mountain View Lutheran Church gave me the right answer for being saved.
Every single person who went to that Mountain View Lutheran Church, I said, you know,
how do you know you're going to heaven? Oh, just the way I live my life.
You know, it's just because I'm a good person.
I mean, that's literally the answer that they're all giving, either I'm a good person,
I live a good life, the way I live my life.
None of them said, oh yeah, it's because I believe on Jesus.
It's because it's through Jesus Christ, you know, I believe in him and it's by faith.
It was all just works and false teaching, and right on their side, just massive banner,
Luis Palau City Fest.
You know, that's not who I want to join up with in evangelism.
They can't even get their own church members saved who've been going to that church for decades.
A lot of these people are elderly. They've been at that church for decades
and they don't even know the gospel and I'm trying to give them the gospel.
You think I'm going to join up with Mountain View Lutheran down at Tempe Town Lake in an evangelistic crusade?
You know, and then the other one, I just saw a big banner driving on Southern Avenue,
Grace Community Church, another church where look,
Brother Dave and I have knocked every, and you can say, oh but don't criticize,
Brother Dave and I have knocked every door within a several mile radius of Grace Community Church.
That's where he learned soul wedding. That was his first soul wedding.
And we knocked the doors and he'll tell you, when they say Grace Community,
they're the ones who were not saved, believed in works of it,
and they were the ones who would yell at us and slam the door in our face before we even said anything.
We would literally, I mean, somebody would say, oh man, this person yelled at me.
It's like, it's the Grace Community, yep.
Because literally, we knock down these doors and literally have these people just,
we have them, we just, hi, would you sit on the vibe?
Those are, you know, I got, you know, do you know for sure you're not eating all that?
Yes, I do, and I go to Grace Community and I appreciate you being there.
You know, it's just like, whoa, man, sorry.
You know, or it was just a total work salvation.
I mean, look, welcome to reality, folks.
It's easy to sit and have this positive attitude and say, well, we're all preaching the same thing, but no, we don't.
It's just not true.
And so when we say unity, we don't want to unify with a false gospel that teaches work salvation.
The gospel is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
The gospel is for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man suppose.
That is not what Mountain View Lutheran Church is preaching.
That is not what Grace Community Church is preaching.
That's not what all these Louise Powell followers are teaching because we just get out of the street with you.
You say, I don't believe we'll get out there with you and let's find out.
Come doorknocking with me this afternoon and we'll ask them.
We'll talk, we'll knock on every door and ask them and see what they say.
And so the bottom line is we don't want to just unify with every glitter, but within our church, we should have a unity.
That's why it's important that doctrine is preached so that we can all be on the same page.
You know, we all believe the same gospel.
We all believe the same thing and obviously there are minor differences in what everybody's going to believe.
Nobody agrees on everything, but we want to have unity on the gospel.
You know, we want to have unity on soul winning.
We want to have unity on the Word of God, on the major issues.
We have unity, okay, and we can't be unified with people who preach a false doctrine.
So the bottom line is the church in the book of Acts had unity and they were all pitching in.
And you see the danger of what God's trying to teach us back in the book of Joshua.
If you want to turn back there, Joshua chapter 7, is that when not everybody is involved, we lose.
But when everybody, when all the people pitch in, we win.
We get something done.
That's the first lesson that we see in Joshua 7.
God said send everybody.
Man says, oh, that's just a few people.
And a lot of people have this attitude in church.
They think, oh, well, there's a couple people in the church that are really gifted in that area.
You know, Pastor Anderson perhaps and, you know, maybe Brother Stuckey or Brother, you know, Dave Burson.
You know, these guys and Brother Garrett, oh man, you know, he's got that gift of soul winning, you know.
And whoever, you can list a lot because, you know, our church is filled with people who go to soul winning.
Okay, and they might just say, oh, that's just for a few people.
No, it's for everybody to go out and do the work.
And you see, it doesn't matter how good I am at soul winning or how good he is or how good anybody is.
The bottom line is, the job is not going to get done unless everybody pitches in.
It just isn't going to get done.
I mean, look at that map out there.
That job is not going to get done by a few people.
It's not going to get done by just a small percentage.
I mean, we're talking about the children of Israel were numbered in the book of Numbers at 600,000 men of war.
And how many did they want to send into battle?
2,000.
You know, they want to send in basically less than 1%.
You're not going to win like that.
And the bottom line is, our church is really going to get the gospel out and really preach the gospel and really win the battle here
of shining the light of the glorious gospel throughout the Phoenix and greater Phoenix area when everybody pitches in.
Not just a couple people trying to do the work and trying to get it all done by themselves.
It just can't be done.
You've got to have the whole group out there.
I mean, when we go out soul winning, like for example, today at 1.30, you know, we have different soul winning times throughout the week.
But when we go out soul winning day at 1.30, there's a big difference if there's like four people there or 20 people there, how many doors we knock.
Does that surprise you?
I mean, when there's four people there, you know, okay, we're going to get something done.
We're going to, you know, we're going to knock a bunch of doors.
But you know, when there's 20 people there, and often we've had 20 people out on a Sunday,
and we get a lot more done, a lot more people saved, we cover a lot more ground, we shade in big sections of the map.
Why?
Because we have the whole group out there, not just a couple of, you know, commandos trying to go out there as a lone wolf.
You know, we actually have a church going out there and doing it, a group, an assembly.
And that's what we need if we're going to get the job done today.
We need unity, we need everybody pitching in.
Don't have this attitude, somebody else is going to do it.
And I'll tell you this, growing up as an independent fundamental Baptist, I can name for you a lot of people that I know right now.
And I'm not talking about people in this church, I just mean people that I've known throughout my life.
I can tell you a lot of people right now, they will not go to a church that's not a soul-willing church.
They will only go to a church if it's a soul-willing church, but they never go soul-willing.
But if a church doesn't go soul-willing, they don't.
Because they want to go to a soul-willing church, but they don't ever do the soul-willing.
Because they want somebody to do it, of course.
And they think, well, if that pastor's not soul-willing, he's not right with God.
And if it's not a soul-willing church, it's a dead church.
They don't want to go to a dead church, but why aren't they out there doing it?
They want to just say, hey, don't make me labor there.
I just want to come on Sunday night and hear the numbers.
I just want to hear the report.
Yeah, great, people are getting saved.
I just want to rejoice about it.
But hey, why don't you get out there and do it?
And then we can really get something big done.
Because let me tell you something.
The sky is the limit.
You say, well, we already knocked a lot of doors.
We locked the mosaic.
But you know what?
The sky is the limit.
What if everybody pitched in?
Can you imagine?
So the bottom line is that the individual affects the group by not showing up, number one.
When you don't show up, when you don't participate, it hurts our effort.
Everybody's busy.
It's like when God said in the parable in the book of Matthew, he said, son, go work today in my venue.
And basically one of them said, well, no, I don't want to.
We tell our children to do work.
That's not really the answer we're looking for.
Solomon, clean your room.
No, I don't feel like it.
I mean, do you think that that's an answer that I would accept in my home?
Son, go mow the lawn.
Let's say you have older teenagers, you know, go mow the lawn, son.
No, I don't think so.
I'm busy.
You know, but God is our Father.
And God says in the book of Isaiah chapter 1, he said, you know, if I'm a father to you, then where's my respect?
And it reminded me of when Jesus said, why say you have to be Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say to you?
He says, you keep calling me Lord, but then whenever I tell you to do anything, you don't do it.
You know, am I really the boss here or not?
That's what God's saying.
If I'm a father, then obey me like a father.
If I'm your Lord, then give me reverence and obedience to my commands.
And so that's the first thing I want you to see.
But not only that, not only do you hurt the group by not taking part in the battle, but number two, you hurt the group by the personal sin in your individual life.
Now, have you ever heard the saying that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link?
You know, that's very true.
And you see, in the Bible here, we have a story about a group, the children of Israel.
And that group as a whole was being blessed by God.
That group was under God's blessing and doing great things for God.
But one man brought in sin, one man brought in covetousness and wickedness.
And because of that, it actually caused the whole group to suffer.
Did you see that?
And it actually caused them to be defeated to the point where 36 men died.
Now, think about that.
That's 36 men who had life and children.
I mean, this is a tragedy.
It's not just, oh, that's just a low number, just because a thousand didn't die.
You know, and that's the way we are today sometimes.
We're desensitized to numbers like that.
You know, this is 36 human beings that died because one man lusted after gold and silver and wealth for himself.
And it actually caused people to be hurt and died because it says in verse number,
well, let's jump down to where Achan actually confesses to it so we can see what Achan actually did wrong.
It says in verse 20, and Achan answered Joshua and said,
indeed, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done.
When I saw among the spoils of a goodly Babylonish garment and two hundred shekels of silver
and a wedge of gold and fifty shekels of weight, then I coveted them and took them.
And behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent and the silver under it.
Now you say, why was this a sin?
Well, because God had told them before they went into Jericho, remember he knocked the walls down?
Before they went in, he told them, he said, do not take any of the spoil.
All the gold, all the silver, all that, it's all going to be holy unto the Lord.
And basically, you're going to give that to God as an offering.
Basically, you know, you're not supposed to touch the spoil of this one.
Now in future battles, including A.I., they were allowed to take the spoil.
They were allowed to take the gold.
They were allowed to take the silver.
They were allowed to take the garments.
So all they had to do was just wait.
If he would have just waited until the next battle, he could have taken whatever he wanted.
But instead, he just saw some really cool stuff.
You know, this wedge of gold and this silver and this cloth, this cool Babylonian outfit,
this worldly clothing that he had to have, and he coveted it, he saw it, he coveted it,
meaning that he desired to have something that didn't belong to him, and he stole it from God.
I mean, it was supposed to be for God.
It was supposed to go be offered unto the Lord.
But no, he stole it from God and then basically ends up just bringing a curse upon the whole group.
I mean, a curse upon the whole nation because of his sin.
Now, we often think to ourselves when we sin, well, I'm not hurting anybody, right?
And you'll often talk to people that are very sinful people, but they'll say,
well, you know, I don't hurt anybody else, though.
You know, it's just, I'm just hurting myself here.
You know, maybe they're a drunk.
You know, and that's what the Bible calls, by the way, not an alcoholic, a drunkard.
You know, maybe they're a drunkard or maybe they're, you know, addicted to drugs
or maybe they're a fornicator or whatever.
Maybe they look at pornography, whatever the sin that you want to mention,
and they say, well, I'm just hurting myself.
I'm not hurting anybody else.
It's just that my problem isn't between me and God.
But wait a minute.
Every time you sin, you're always hurting someone else, always, every time.
No matter what the sin, you're hurting others.
For example, if I'm drunken, don't you think that's going to affect my children?
I mean, they're going to grow up, you know, and have to deal with issues of that.
You know, don't you think it's going to affect my wife?
Don't you think it's going to affect my church or my family or people around me?
You see, Aiken here committed a bad sin.
He stole money from God, basically.
He stole this gold and silver and clothing that was supposed to belong to God.
And he stole it, okay?
It'd be like if you, it'd be like if you came into the church, right,
and just stuck your hand in the offering plate and just took out a fistful of cash.
I mean, would you have the boldness to do that?
Would you have the guts to do that?
To just literally reach in and just take God's money and just rip it out of the plate,
just shove it in your own pocket, and say,
well, you know, I want that money.
I needed that.
You know, and just steal it directly from God's house, okay?
So, basically, he'd done this sin, but wait a minute, did his wife commit a sin?
Did we read anything about his wife doing anything wrong here?
Yeah.
I didn't really see anything.
Did you see anything where his kids were involved in this?
Did you see anything where his ox was involved in this?
Or his sheep? No.
But yet, because of man's anger here,
and this was not something that God told them to do,
because God said that children should never be put to death for the sins of their parents,
and everybody should only be punished for their own actions only.
But yet, just because of their anger and rage about 36 men dying and losing a significant battle,
because of that anger, they said, no, we're going to not only kill you, Aiken,
we're going to kill everybody in your whole family.
They're all going to be put to death.
And, you know, this has happened throughout, and I'm not condoning it.
It was wrong. They should not have killed his family.
But guess what? They still died.
And, you know, throughout history, evil dictators have been put to death for their crimes,
and guess what? A lot of times, the people did.
They killed their family, too.
You know, when they chopped off Louis XVI's head for the guillotine, you know,
then they also killed his wife, you know, and then they also killed a lot of other people, too, okay?
Because when you sin, you can sometimes bring bad consequences on the people around you.
And so Aiken's sin hurt his wife.
Aiken's sin hurt his children.
But guess what? So does your sin.
Your sin adversely affects your wife.
Your sin adversely affects your children.
Your sin affects those around you.
Because every time we sin, it has consequences to everyone around us.
And you see, when you're not living the life that you ought to live,
maybe you're not preaching the gospel to the people that would be saved,
and their eternal destiny is in the balance here.
And if you sin, then they're not going to hear the gospel.
You know, by refusing to preach the gospel to every preacher,
by refusing to let your light shine and to open your mouth boldly to make know the mystery of the gospel,
that has consequences on others.
The Bible says, but if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.
And if the god as well has blinded the minds of them which believe not, okay?
So he says, when you don't preach the gospel, they lose.
But when you commit sin, when you put the bottle to your lips,
when you take that drug, when you look at that magazine that you showed,
when you watch that movie that you showed, you are hurting other people.
And you know what? You're hurting our church.
You're hurting our church.
Because our church is only as strong as the individual members are.
You see, if Pastor Anderson were just the most spiritual guy in the world,
and I'm not, but if I were just the most spiritual guy in the world,
but everybody in the queue is carnal and worldly and sinful
and not serving God and not reading their Bible and not praying,
this would not be a great church.
It couldn't be a great church.
You might have a great guy, but you don't have a great church.
And it's not going to get the job done at all.
One guy is not going to get anything done.
I mean, it's got to be the church.
And when you've got a church filled with individual people
who are individually going home and watching a bunch of filthy worldliness on TV,
watching a bunch of filth on the movies,
just neglecting their Bible, neglecting prayer,
putting everything else priority before church,
before soul winning, before reading their Bible, before serving God,
when you have that, that hurts the body.
That hurts the group.
Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
Just as Joshua's sin here affected everyone.
And by the way, the Bible says in Malachi chapter 3
that if you don't pay your tithe, you're also robbing God.
It says, well, a man robbed God, and yet they say,
wherein have we robbed thee? He said in tithes and offerings.
Bring the tithes into the storehouse
that there may be meat in my house, save the Lord.
And so, you know, when you basically hoard all your money
and say like, well, I'm not going to give my tithe,
you know, basically that's what Achan was doing in a sense
because he was robbing God,
and the Bible says that that's robbing God.
Because 10% of our money, 10% of our increase rather,
belongs unto God, according to the Bible.
That's Old Testament, that's New Testament.
He said 10% of our increase belongs to the Lord.
So if you increase, you know, you're supposed to give a tenth to God.
And you say, well, I can't afford that.
Well, if you make very little money, then a tenth isn't that much.
You know, and if you make a lot of money,
you must be able to afford it because you make a lot of money.
So that's what the Bible teaches.
But it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, watch this,
1 Corinthians 12.5, that there should be no schism in the body,
but that the members should have the same care one for another.
Member means like body part, okay?
Have you ever heard of someone being dismembered?
You know, dismembered means body part.
It says in verse 26, watch this,
and whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.
Do you see that?
When one body part suffers, the whole body.
Now, I'll prove this to you, okay?
Brother Chris, come on.
Brother Chris.
Okay.
Now, what if I brought Brother Chris up here, okay?
I'm going to take this metal can right here.
Put your hand right there, okay?
Now, is this a really big part of his body?
His pinky.
Do you think this is a major part of his body?
No.
But what if I took this can and just slammed it down as hard as I could on his pinky?
Okay, like I'm about to do.
No, just kidding.
Go ahead, sit down.
Do you think that just his pinky is going to suffer?
Or do you think maybe his pinky will come out about like,
ah, like two days?
Don't you think other parts of his body are going to kick in?
Because when his pinky hurts,
he's going to feel that pain all the way up his arm
and radiating up, you know.
And just one little part of your body.
I mean, look.
Did you know that one of the worst pains in this life is kidney stones?
That's one of the things that they rag as being one of the most painful things.
And did you know that kidney stone is the size of a grain of sand?
A little grain of sand in your kidney can put you in excruciating pain
where you're just on the ground in the fetal position
because of a grain of sand in your body, literally.
I mean, people just begging for mercy in excruciating pain
because of a grain of sand.
That's what a kidney stone is.
Who's ever seen a kidney stone before?
You've actually looked upon the stone.
Yeah, I've seen it.
My dad had a kidney stone and after his past, I looked upon it.
It was like a grain of sand.
It was a speck.
It was a dot.
And yet it tormented him.
It rendered his whole body just non-functional to where, you know.
I mean, when you're actually in the thralls of that kidney stone pain,
I mean, you're not at work.
You're not doing your job saying,
Yeah, this is really bugging me.
I mean, you're just...
You're debilitated by a grain of sand, okay?
And so the bottom line is that the church in the Bible is liken unto the body.
The Bible says the church is the body of Christ.
So within this body right here,
Christ is the head of our church, right?
And we're the body.
So you may just be the pinky.
You know, you may be the earlobe, proverbially speaking.
Maybe you're just the toe.
But you know what?
When you suffer, the whole body suffers.
You know, you can just get an infection.
You can get an infection in your kidney.
It's going to give you a headache.
It's going to make your head hurt.
It's going to make your throat hurt.
It's going to make all different things happen in your body
because no one is just isolated, okay?
And so the Bible says in verse 26,
whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.
Or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.
Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular.
And so we are each a member of this body right here.
And when we bring sin into our life,
we're basically poisoning the whole body.
And when we do the right things,
and here's the good, that's the negative side.
Here's the positive side.
When you grow spiritually,
you're actually causing faith to Word Baptist Church to grow.
You're causing faith.
You say, oh, I really want our church to grow.
I really want our church to thrive.
When you personally thrive,
that causes our church to thrive.
I mean, if I, let's say I have a sore throat, okay?
That could make my whole body sick.
If I get strep throat,
I'm going to have a fever in my whole body.
I'm going to have muscle pain.
I'm going to have all these other symptoms.
But if I can put something on my throat
that will heal my throat,
and if my throat can improve,
my whole body's going to feel better.
My energy level's going to come back.
I'm going to be able to go to work again
and give it 110% on the job
because my throat is back to normal.
And you know, you today,
when you get the sin out of your life,
you are helping this church.
You're helping your family.
Because how strong is your family?
As strong as mom and dad and the children are.
That's how strong your family is.
How great is our church?
It's as great as you are.
You know, it's not always looking at everybody else
and wishing that everybody else would do this
and that I wish Pastor Anderson would be more like this
and I wish that these people would go out and do this.
You know, you got to look at the part
that you have control of and say,
you know what, I can make this a great church myself.
I can make this church great
by me getting some of the sin out of my life.
Me getting in my Bible and reading it every day.
Me going out there and knocking doors and winning souls
is going to help the group.
Because the group doesn't really exist
except that it's just a group of individuals.
And so if you want our church to grow,
you need to grow.
I need to grow.
And by us growing personally,
the whole group grows and moves to the next level.
And so you're helping the whole body.
I mean, if I put a vitamin in my mouth,
that might help my whole body
by sending the nutrients everywhere it needs to go.
And so we need to get this attitude that says,
you know what, everything I do
has an impact on the people around me.
When I live a sinful life,
that's going to harm others.
When I do right,
that's going to help others.
You know, if I read my Bible,
if I pray, and by the way,
people might be watching you
and you don't even know it.
And I'm not talking about the government.
That's true too, okay.
You know, they're watching us.
No, when I say people might be watching,
you know that there are people in this church
that maybe you're one of their biggest role models?
Oh, man.
Seriously.
Not everybody just looks at Pastor Anderson as the leader.
Other people have other leaders too
because they look at other people in this church
that they have respect for.
They see you out soul winning.
They see you doing great things for God
and they look up to you.
But then when you start to fade,
when you start to drift spiritually,
you know what's going to happen?
They're going to start to fade.
They're going to start to drift spiritually
because they've got their eye on you.
You know, and when one person starts to fade,
then everybody just kind of feels like it's okay to fade.
I mean, so and so is fading away here.
So and so is drifting.
And that's how I always...
You know, most people don't just go
from just being on fire for God,
winning souls, coming to church faithfully,
doing all these great things for God,
reading the Bible.
They don't just go from that to just overnight
just quitting the church
or quitting soul winning or quitting...
No, it's a fading that takes place.
It's a fading.
It's a backsliding that takes place
where they just slowly begin to fade away.
And you know what?
When people see you fade away,
it's going to weaken them.
It's going to discourage them.
You know, I'll tell you something right now.
When somebody shows up for soul winning
and there's a whole bunch of people here,
don't you think that that excites them
and rallies them and wow, it's exciting.
Look how much we got done.
Wow, we knocked all these doors.
Look at all this.
It rallies them.
But when they show up and it says,
oh, it's just me and the pastor,
you know, then that might discourage them a little bit.
See how that effect could be there?
See, the momentum grows
when everybody's excited,
everybody's serving God,
everybody's going to battle
and we won in Jericho
and we're going to win in AI
and we're going to win again and again and again.
Or when we lose in AI,
well, guess what?
Now everybody's down.
It wasn't just the 36 families that are weeping.
It wasn't just the two or three thousand men
that lost the battle.
No, the whole nation is weeping
because one member, one group,
the two thousand, the less than one percent
that lost the battle,
that made everybody weep.
That had Joshua on his face crying.
That had everybody upset
because it doesn't take much
for an individual to affect the group.
Individuals will always have the effect on the group.
And so the first thing we saw was,
you know, by not pitching in,
by not joining in the battle,
by not being a part of the group,
you know, you're hindering things.
That's what we saw in AI.
Number two, sin in your personal life,
whatever that sin is.
The Bible says,
when lust hath conceived,
it bringeth forth sin.
And sin, when it is finished,
bringeth forth death.
That's exactly what we saw here.
Achan lusted after something
that did not belong to him.
In this case, money.
That led to sin, him taking the money.
That led to death of himself, ultimately,
and his whole family, okay?
There are other things, you know,
that you may lust after in this life.
And if you give in to that temptation,
then it will ultimately bring doom
to not only you,
but the people around you.
But not only that,
look what it says in verse 6,
Joshua 7, 6.
It says,
In Joshua rent his clothes,
that means he tore his clothing,
and fell to the earth upon his face
before the ark of the Lord
until the eventide.
He and the elders of Israel
and put dust upon their heads.
And Joshua said,
Alas, O Lord God,
wherefore hast thou at all
brought this people over Jordan
to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites,
to destroy us?
Would to God we'd been content
and dwelt on the other side of Jordan.
O Lord, what shall I say
when Israel turneth their backs
before their enemies?
For the Canaanites
and all the inhabitants of the land
shall hear of it,
and shall environ us round,
and cut off our name from the earth.
And what wilt thou do unto thy great name?
Now you say, oh, this is great,
because Joshua here is praying,
he's really getting right with God here,
he's on his face,
and he's humbling himself here.
But hold on a second,
look what God's response is
to Joshua praying.
He says in verse 10,
And the Lord said to Joshua,
Get thee up,
wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?
Now does that sound like God is impressed
with Joshua on his face praying here?
He says, get up,
why are you lying on your face?
Get up.
And he says,
Israel has sinned,
and they have also transgressed my covenant
which I have commanded them.
For they have even taken it,
the accursed thing,
and have also stolen,
and dissembled also,
and they have put it even among your own stuff.
Therefore the children of Israel
could not stand before their enemies,
but turn their backs
before their enemies,
because they were accursed.
Neither will I be with you anymore,
except you destroy the accursed from among you.
And look,
he's grouping it in, isn't he?
In this point.
I mean, he's just saying Israel sinned,
he didn't even say one guy sinned.
The group sinned.
You know, if we have one person in our church
just living in open fornication,
then God will be angry at our entire church.
In Revelation,
chapter number 2,
he rebuked the church because of one woman, Jezebel.
And he said,
get that woman out,
or I'll destroy your whole church.
I'll remove your candlestick out of his place.
Get rid,
you're allowing this woman to be...
Remember in 1 Corinthians,
there was that guy
who was in sin with his stepmother,
and God said,
a little leaven,
leaveneth the whole lump.
Wherefore,
put away from among yourselves
that wicked person.
Get that guy out,
who's just openly living in fornication.
Get him out,
because a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
But you see this,
you know what this reminds me of here,
where Joseph's praying?
All across the nation today,
Independent Fundamental Baptists,
you'll often hear them saying,
we need to pray for revival.
You know, who's heard something like that?
You know,
pray for revival.
We need to pray for revival,
that God will send the revival.
And I want to say to them,
get off your face.
God's not going to send revival.
It's going to come
when we get the sin out of our lives.
And it's going to come
when we go out and do the work
that He told us to do.
And people think,
praying is going to send revival.
What does that even mean?
So Walt,
everybody in the church
is living a life
contrary to God's Word.
Walt, the preacher is afraid
to preach against the sins
that the people are doing
contrary to His Word.
And Walt,
90% of the people
don't preach the gospel to anyone
and give the gospel to anyone.
God's going to send revival
if we pray along.
No, no He's not.
Joshua could have prayed
for 40 days and 40 nights here.
And guess what?
It wouldn't have fixed the problem.
They had to get rid of the sin.
They had to get rid of the problem.
And then they had to follow God's instruction
by everybody going to the battle.
That is the solution today.
Not praying for revival.
Joshua was praying here
but it wasn't prayer
that was going to fix the problem.
Look, I'm all for prayer.
Prayer is important.
Prayer is critical.
But guess what?
There's a time to pray
and there's a time not to pray.
There's a time to fix the problem.
And you can't just sit there
and live and sin
and then pray
that everything's going to be fine.
No, you need to get up off your face
and don't fix the problem.
And that's what we see today in America.
We see churches that are filled with worldliness
and sin
and people living according to the flesh.
And the pastor goes home
and watches all the DVDs.
And the church members go home
and watch their Jerry Seinfeld and Friends
and whatever's on TV today.
That's what was on TV when I was a teenager.
You know, whatever shows,
whatever film.
And they watch all the homos.
And they watch all the adultery.
And they watch all the nudity.
And they watch all the blasphemy.
And they listen to the world's music
when the Bible says to be filled with the Spirit.
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs.
They're pumping their mind
with all the hip-hop
and the rock and R&B.
And then they come to church on Sunday
and pray for revival.
It's nonsense.
It's ridiculous.
They think that when two people in the church
are out soul-winning,
God's going to send revival.
Because they read some book about some Pentecostal,
like Charles G. Finney,
some lying revival
where Charles G. Finney just walked into a room
and everybody started crying
and fell on their face and got saved.
That is garbage.
That's not found in the Bible.
Show me where Jesus walked in
and everybody started crying
and fell down and just instantly got saved.
And are you telling me that these
Charles G. Finney's greater than Jesus?
I don't see that happening with Jesus.
I see Paul.
I mean, the Apostle Paul.
Talk about a guy who was filled with the Spirit.
He was doing miracles and stuff.
You know, he was an apostle of Jesus Christ
that was given all these special powers
and even did miracles.
And he labored more abundantly.
When I see Paul walk in,
he disputes with people for hours sometimes.
And most of the time,
they're throwing him out of town.
They're not canceling all their church.
I mean, where do you see Paul show up to town
and all the churches cancel their service
and all go to hear Paul?
No.
They're fighting him.
They're arresting him.
I mean, who's here on Wednesday nights
hearing the book of Acts?
He's getting stoned.
He's getting arrested.
He's getting beaten.
And, you know, there's always many that believed,
but then there's always many who mocked
and many who refused to believe
and many said no.
It's never just everybody getting saved.
Yet you read about these preachers from the 1800s,
you know, and the 1700s,
and John Wesley and George Whitefield
and Billy Sunday,
and all the churches would cancel their service
and the Presbyterians and the Methodists.
Look, if the Presbyterian, Methodist,
Lutheran, Episcopalian are all there,
it ain't the Gospel.
Right.
You know, and that didn't happen in the book of Acts.
He was getting fought off by those kind of people.
And yet today we have people who think
that some mystical, magical little poofoo dust
God's going to sprinkle on us called revival
where all of a sudden every time we preach
everybody's going to get saved
and it's just going to magically happen
that all of a sudden the church is going to be packed with people
and just magically all these people are going to get baptized
because God sent revival.
No, that will happen when we get right with God,
get the sin out of our life,
and then go out and preach the Gospel.
You know why Paul had such great results?
It wasn't because he just had this miraculous thing going on.
And yes, God did do miracles.
I understand that.
But you know why Paul said it was?
He said, I labored more abundantly than they are.
He said, the reason that God used me more
than some of the other apostles is because I labored more.
I labored more abundantly than they are.
I labored day and night.
That's why I got done, okay?
And yeah, he was filled with the Spirit.
Yeah, it's important to be filled with the Spirit.
Yeah, you need to have the power of Christ resting upon you.
Yeah, he told them at the day of Pentecost,
you know, wait till you be a dude with power from on high.
But hey, how are you going to be filled with the Spirit of God
when you're filled with the Spirit of the world?
You know, you can't be filled with the Spirit
and be filled with worldliness at the same time.
And so the answer is not to pray for revival.
I'm sorry, but I don't believe in that.
I mean, I'm sick of it.
It's nonsense.
It's just people getting up
and they're a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.
Rock, pray for revival, pray for revival.
You know, while every woman in their church
is basically completely in disobedience to God's Word,
dressed like a floozy, you know,
and they're going to pray for revival.
You know, when every man in their church is a weakling
and a sissy and he's not reading his Bible
and he's looking at dirty images on the movies and TV,
they're going to pray for revival.
While two out of every hundred people are out soul-winding,
they're going to pray for revival.
It's nonsense. It's garbage.
We don't need to pray for revival.
Yes, we need prayer in our personal lives.
But you know what we ought to pray for? Ourself.
Paul said, I'm going to pray that I have boldness.
I'm going to pray that God gives me the power
to preach the Gospel to every creature,
and then I'm going to go preach the Gospel to every creature.
Why don't you pray that God helps you to understand the Bible?
Why don't you pray that God will help you straighten your life up?
Why don't you pray that our church would have more laborers
because the Bible says the harvest truly is plenteous,
but the laborers are few.
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest
that he'll send more laborers into his harvest.
That's what I'm praying for.
That God will send more laborers out into the harvest.
I'm praying that I'll have boldness.
I'm praying that you'll have boldness.
I'm praying that we'll get the sin out of our life.
I'm praying that we'll stop being worldly.
I'm not praying to be the next Charles T. Finney
so I can walk in with my eyes wild and bugged out of my head
and people just fall down on their face and magically get saved.
Because I'm Peter Carbragge.
I'm Charles T. Finney.
I'm Wesley.
I'm Whitfield.
And magically, all these people just fall down at my feet.
That is a false doctrine.
Get with God's program here.
There's a time to get off your face, my friend,
and to get something done and to fix the problem.
And again, not saying that prayer is a bad thing.
Prayer is important.
But prayer is not going to fix everything.
Let me give you an example.
What if you just decide to quit your job
and just pray that God will bring the money in?
Do you think that's going to work?
Like, I'm going to quit my job
and just spend the day praying
that God will miraculously provide for me.
Is that going to work?
No.
I think if you did that,
God would be saying up in heaven,
get thee up off my face and go to work.
Okay, you know, there's a time to pray,
but, you know, does God command us to pray 24 hours a day?
No.
That is not true.
We have other things that we're supposed to be doing,
and we can't just pray and expect God to fix our problem
when we're in disobedience to God here.
And that's what the Children of Israel learned in this chapter.
They basically learned that, you know,
when we have sin in our camp,
when we have an accursed thing in our house
or an accursed thing in our church,
He said, you know, praying isn't going to fix it.
And when only 2,000 people are going to a battle
that 600,000 are supposed to go to,
pray all you want.
That's not going to fix it.
And, you know, if God tells you to sin 300, then sin 300.
But when God tells you to sin 600,000,
you better sin 600,000.
And God is telling us all, to all of us,
and He even mentioned in the book of Acts 1 and 2,
man, woman, boy, girl, young and old,
preach the gospel.
You know, get out there and do it.
And if we're going to disobey that,
prayer is not going to fix the problem.
We need to all pitch in.
We need to realize that our individual life
affects the group.
And so I want every person who's here today
on the end of the sound of my voice,
don't put this message on to someone else.
Do a self-exam right now.
Think about yourself and say,
hey, am I part of the solution or am I part of the problem?
You know, Jesus said,
he that is not with me is against me.
And he that gathereth not with me,
he that is not with me is against me.
Ask yourself, do I have wicked sin in my life
that could actually be harming the people around me
and influencing people around me?
Am I starting to fade away from church
and soul-lending in the things of God and Bible reading?
Am I starting to fade spiritually
and that is going to have an adverse effect
on faithful word back to the church?
Am I really one of the people who's sitting back
saying let somebody else do it
or am I actually on the front lines?
Okay, these are the type of things
that you need to ask yourself today
and realize that the individual affects the group.
The group is only as strong as the individual members
and the church, faithful word back to the church,
is only as strong as you are and as I am
because we are the church.
Let's try to have a word of prayer.