Immediately after Joshua’s encounter with the Captain of the hosts, he had to face the seemingly impossible, impregnable stronghold of Jericho. Of course, the Lord could have flicked Jericho with His little finger and it would have ceased to exist, but He did not want it to be that easy. Though the defeat of Jericho was going to require His intervention, the Lord was requiring His people to be vitally engaged in the fight for their promises. This is because of an important basic principle–anything that comes too fast or too easily is usually insignificant.  

There are many things that the Lord wants to do for us. There are gifts He wants to give simply because He loves us and wants us to have them. This is not to try to devalue these special gifts or things that the Lord does for us. Indeed, the greatest gift of all, our salvation, was a free gift that in no way can be earned. However, it is a symptom of a basic misunderstanding about our purposes here when Christians claim that because something has come so easily and fast that it was God. This may be true, but except for the special gifts and things that He likes to do for us as noted above, this is often either evidence of our immaturity or the insignificance of what we are involved in.

As we have addressed before, the Lord could have bound the devil and established His kingdom immediately after His resurrection, as He already purchased the world and all that is in it. This entire age, the church age, is for the purpose of training for reigning for those who will reign with Him in the ages to come. He purposely did not bind the devil because He does not want it to be easy. Easy in this age usually equates to less maturity, less importance, or even less of a calling.

This will be an affront and perhaps slap in the face to the immature or the insecure, but it is time that we grow up and begin to eat the meat. When the Lord said “…Woe to those who nurse babes in those days” (Matthew 24:19), I think this could be interpreted as “Woe to those who keep their people in immaturity in these days.” Regardless of our own concepts or even what we have been taught, we will not all be the same in heaven. Scripture is clear that there are levels and positions in heaven, and we are establishing our eternal place and position right here. One of the most destructive deceptions in the church is that once you are saved there is nothing else to work for.

I realize that those with the hunger and devotion to the things of the Lord who will even give themselves to reading material such as this at least already have a sense of this truth. We will later establish it further in the Scriptures, but for now we must understand that difficulties do not come upon us as punishment, but as an opportunity. The more difficult trials are not because of what we have done wrong, but because of what we are doing right. It was because of Paul the apostle’s high calling that he suffered so much. It was understanding this that caused the other apostles to rejoice after they had been beaten by the authorities because they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name’s sake.

Easy does not always equate with the favor of God. In fact, your trials are probably a far greater evidence of His favor, as we are told in Hebrews 12:5-13:
 

The process of just getting to the place of entering their land was long and difficult. A whole generation had passed away because they did not have the faith that was required for taking and living in the promises. Now a great change was coming upon the routine of their existence. In the wilderness, everything had been provided for them. Now they were going to have to fight for their own inheritance, and the obstacles that stood in their way simply looked impossible.

Just crossing the Jordan and then enduring the circumcision had been very hard. The Lord did not let them wait until the floods subsided to let them cross, but led them across at the most difficult time, even when the river was overflowing all of its banks. Then they immediately had to endure the circumcision, and were humiliated and made weak in the very presence of their enemies, while looking up at the seemingly impregnable walls of the fortress.

We are coming to the times when passive Christianity and passive Christians will cease to exist. There is a maturity, a discipline, and a divine militancy coming upon the people of God. Those who have succumbed to humanistic and idealistic theologies may have a hard time with this, but we must understand that God is a military God. The title that He uses ten times more than any other in Scripture is “the Lord of hosts,” or “Lord of armies.” There is a martial aspect to His character that we must understand and embrace for the times and the job to which we are now coming.

The Captain of the hosts of the Lord who has come to take over is indeed a great Captain. The greatest commanders will always be found as having laid a strong foundation for their victories by giving their soldiers the best training and having them in the best shape. As it was said of the Shulamite maid, who was a metaphor for the bride of Christ, the church, “Who is this that grows like the dawn, as beautiful as the full moon, as pure as the sun, as awesome as an army with banners?” (Song of Solomon 6:10). This is what the church is about to become.

The captain would always lead the people to victory, and he would begin his campaign by facing what seemed to be an impossible stronghold. They would learn the way of victory from the beginning. However, to do so they would have to learn to follow orders—even orders that they did not understand. That is the faith and the trust in God that would be required for walking in the promises.

There is another great change in our mentality that will come. It is often said that the people will not come into unity without persecution. The unity that is coming will not be from persecution. Persecution is being attacked, but what is coming is a unifying to do the attacking—the church rising up to attack the great strongholds of our times that have exalted themselves against the knowledge of God. We will not continue to be on the defensive. This mentality is going to radically change in the very near future. There will be no more retreat before the enemies of the cross.   

Let us also keep in mind that this is all spiritual and the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. The armies of Christ are not armed with guns and bombs, but our sword is the truth; our resolve is to love. Our conquest of the land is in order to set the people free, not to destroy them or take anything from them. The kingdom is coming. The earth and all it contains is the Lord’s, and He will take it back, but far more valuable than all of the treasure and land are the people. The people are His inheritance. The people are going to be His, and they are going to love Him for conquering them.

 The strongholds that are exalting themselves against the knowledge of God have been set up throughout the territory of humanity. The great battles are for the minds and hearts of people. There are strongholds in science such as evolution, which may now seem to have an impregnable grip on the minds of men, but they will come down. However, the Lord is not going to destroy science—He is going to conquer and possess it.

All true science will lead to the Creator. As Jon Amos Comenius once said as sort of a paraphrase of Paul’s statement in the first chapter of the Book of Romans, “Nature is God’s second book.” Everything in creation speaks of Him. As Elisabeth Barrett Browning said, “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees, takes off his shoes—the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries. Only those who see take off their shoes, but soon all will have their eyes opened, and they will all take off their shoes in His presence.

The Lord is not coming to destroy the world, but to save it. The kingdom is coming to save the earth from all of the consequences of the Fall, and not only give the earth a future, but one more glorious than we can now comprehend. Every evil stronghold that exalts itself against the knowledge of God will come down. There is a war to fight, but it is a spiritual war. The kingdom is coming to destroy war, child abuse, wife abuse, animal abuse, environmental abuse, disease, famine, and even death itself. The kingdom is coming to restore the earth and make it the paradise that God intended for it to be.

There is no greater hope for the future than the gospel of the kingdom. This is the gospel that must be preached before the end of this age can come. We cannot allow the New Age movements and other cults to continue to hold the high ground of hope for the future when that is our special domain. Our message is not only one of hope for the future, but of the greatest hope of all. No other religion, no philosophy of utopia, has a message of hope as great as the gospel of the kingdom.

But what about the great tribulation? What about the great time of trouble such as the world has never seen before? These will come. We need to understand them, and we need to be prepared for them. I once had a prophetic experience in which the Lord showed me very simply how to be prepared for them.

In this experience, I suddenly found myself standing in front of a radar screen on a warship and the Lord Himself was standing right next to me. There was a blip on the screen that was straight ahead and coming closer very fast. In this experience, I ordered the ship to turn 90 degrees to the right to avoid the impending collision, but after we turned, the blip on the screen remained dead ahead and kept coming straight at us. I then ordered the ship to turn to the left to avoid the collision, but with the same result—it kept coming straight at us. I braced myself for the collision, but nothing happened. When I asked the Lord what that was He simply said, “That was the great tribulation, the great time of trouble. You can’t avoid it, but if you stay close to Me, you won’t even feel it.” Then the experience was over.

The great tribulation, or time of trouble, is but a tiny blip on the radar screen of all that is coming. It is coming, and it is unavoidable, but if we stay close to the Lord, we do not need to fear it. As we are told in Daniel 11, even when the “abomination of desolation” (Daniel 11:31) is being set up, “the people who know their God will display strength and take action” (Daniel 11:32). When this happens, the people who know their God will not be passive; they will not be hiding; they will be here and they will be taking action!

There are many strongholds, or deceptions, that have exalted themselves against the knowledge of God that are firmly planted in the church. These will be removed, as the Lord promised in Matthew 13:40-43:

Just as many issues had to be dealt with in Israel before they could cross over and begin to posses their land, the church has some issues that must be dealt with before we can go any further. They will be. Some of these issues will pass with the generation before God’s people can cross over.

The emerging generation, the one that will cross over, is almost universally examining and challenging the doctrines that led to many of the problems suffered by the previous generations, doctrines which in many ways sowed unbelief and kept them from entering the Promised Land. This examination must be done, but it must be done without disrespecting those who may not have been able to enter the land. At least they left Egypt and got the emerging generation to the place where they could cross over.

You can examine teachings and beliefs in a way that does not dishonor the fathers and mothers for all that they accomplished by learning from the many mistakes they made instead of ridiculing them. As we will study, just as the generation that crossed over made plenty of their own mistakes, pray that those who cross over will not become arrogant. Pride always leads to a fall, and the Lord gives His grace to the humble.