The Daily Word of Righteousness

Preparing the Army of God, #27

And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, And pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people. (Joshua 3:6)

God is speaking to His leaders and teachers today. We are to set an example to the Lord's saints. What we preach we are required to practice. We cannot expect the people to stop sinning and take up their cross until we stop sinning and take up our cross.

It is the responsibility of God's preachers to "pass over before the people." There is to be no more moneymaking, no more seeking our own advantage and gain from the Gospel of the Kingdom. We are to lay down our lives so the resurrection life of Christ may enter those who hear us.

The Ark of the Covenant represents the Presence and will of God, the testimony of His holiness and righteousness in Christ.

And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. (Joshua 3:7)

God has richly anointed and blessed the ministries of the Christian churches as they have labored throughout the centuries. Multitudes of people have made their peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. There have been a few individuals who have pressed past the rudiments of salvation and have found their joy in the Spirit of God. They have come into a fuller relationship to Christ than has been true of the majority of believers.

In addition, the Christian Gospel has inspired social reform and works of mercy in many areas of human life, such as the improvement of the educational opportunities of children, nursing care, abolition of slavery, prison reform, and providing for the poor. In numerous instances Christian people can be found at the heart of benevolent, humane enterprises.

God indeed has magnified the spiritual and social works of those who have labored in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

However, ours is a new day. The Kingdom of God is at hand. What was envisioned by the Prophets of Israel is soon to come to pass in the earth.

We are witnesses of what happens when mankind trusts in its education and achievements apart from the Lord God. Wars, famines, rape, perversion, murder, hatred, and every other catastrophe and moral abomination fill the earth. The harder man works apart from God to achieve peace and abundance the more he is denied peace and abundance. Meanwhile the humble of the earth who trust in the Lord find peace and the supplying of their needs.

The abomination that produces desolation is here already. The trinity of man is 666—man attempting to make himself God.

Whenever man makes himself a god, such as in the religion of Humanism, the inevitable result is desolation—spiritual, moral, financial, intellectual, artistic impoverishment.

We of the "civilized" nations are approaching the midnight hour. The wheat and the tares are growing toward maturity. Christ and Antichrist are heading toward the ultimate confrontation.

God will provide in the near future a power to bear witness that will make the true believers more than conquerors in Jesus' name. The fullness of the witness is portrayed in symbolic form by the two witnesses of Revelation, Chapter Eleven. Christ will bear witness through and with His saints, warning both His Church and the world of the nearness of His Presence. The Day of Wrath is just around the corner. The world is to repent of its wicked practices and believe in the Good News of the soon coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth.

To be continued.