 All right, by the way, is Gerald around here? Is he in here, where are you? There's Gerald. The facility that he has offered to be used for the school is incredible, out at Joshua Springs. And where's John Randall? John over here. You can grab John. They have done unbelievable work. We just want to keep it a small school, just like we kind of started and wanting to take. Many of us came out of the early years of the Bible College. And sometimes you get something so big that it's not as effective on really training and equipping people. And so we really want to keep this a smaller school, and like the days. And so if you know somebody that you really want to invest in in their lives, that's Chuck invested in so many of us early on. And one of the things, I think, that keeps the movement alive is that when we continue to invest in others ourselves. And so pray about it. And there's a table out there. You can go check in and find more. And Gerald, can you be there afterwards? And John, and wonderful. Because they have just done an incredible amount of work on it, as their whole team. And also, we want to thank Raul. And the whole team. What a good thing. I mean, this has just been over the top. This has just been a great conference. This has been just over the top. Actually, I don't think we should thank Raul. Raul really didn't do anything. He just pulled his whole staff together, and he sat down with them. He said, you put on a great conference, or I kill every one of you. So they did. And that's what they told me. OK, we'll do what you want. And also, truly, we want to pray for Brian and for CGN, and wherever. It's not an issue necessarily to us of people being right or wrong. And you always want to think that way. But sometimes it's just different. And acknowledging that. And I'd like us, even before we go on, just to take a moment and pray. Can we? Father, we want to thank you for your love for the entire body of Christ. Lord, you don't love one part more than other. You don't care for one more than another. You don't love anybody more or less. You love us all through all our processes and life of growing and maturing. And Lord, we thank you for that. Thank you for your mercy upon us, Lord, that if we had to wait till we were absolutely right to be loved by you, we would never be loved. We'd never be used. And so, Lord, even in our humanness and in our struggles, as we work through these times in our lives, Lord, we ask for your blessing, for your peace, for your guidance, Lord, that we, Lord, can just move on. And as each of us find our ways, that your hand would be upon both for however you want to guide and use and resolve issues in all of our lives. May it be a time, Lord, of testing that we grow and we learn. And Lord, we ask that you would just continue to put your hand on all of us to guide us and bless us and lead us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. One of the things I also just was so, this to me personally, it has been such an incredible time. Truly incredible. I think all the things that we kind of thought and prayed for in all honesty, it's even been more than that for so many of us, the sense of unity. And I think something that it just kind of spontaneously happened yesterday. I think Mike McIntosh made a couple comments. And something that I think that we are so grateful. I know I would not be here had it not been for Chuck N.K. Smith. I just wouldn't. I don't know where I would be and what I would be doing. I hope I would be serving the Lord and loving Him with the family I've been brought into. I am so incredibly grateful for it. And it was just wonderful to see Him kind of all of our hearts drawn towards that yesterday and that gratitude that we also deeply have for Him. And that was a touching, touching thing. And I also want to thank Rob and the worship. I thought the worship was just the simplicity. Sometimes we always seem sometimes like worship has just become this big things. And there's certainly the place for that, but just bringing our hearts simply before the Lord in worship. And so. But this morning, oh, another thing. November conference, the dates are set. You've got those. The place may be changed. And so we will let everything know. We'll hit the internet very heavily with all of you. We're just looking at a couple different things that have come up. So if you've been comfortable in your plans, sometimes God loves to mess the nests up just a little bit to keep our faith where it ought to be in Him. And not people like me. But so we'll figure all that out. We was very, very soon. So we'll be completely in touch on that. And I also want to thank particularly Damian last night because he completely messed up my message for this morning. One of the things when you're the last guy, you're kind of listening to everything going on. And I would kind of plan. I had this whole thing of kind of a wrap up things of just kind of going back to so many of the definities of Calvary Chapel are distinctives and hitting them. And they've just been so wonderfully hit on that it's just kind of made what I was doing of no value. Not that what I'm going to do now is of any value. But turn to Joshua chapter 6, if you would. Joshua 6. Now Jericho was securely shut up because the children of Israel none went out and none came in. And the Lord said to Joshua, see I have given Jericho under your hand. It's king in the mighty Minnavaler. You shall march around the city, all you Minnavaler, and you shall go around the city once. This you shall do six days. In the seventh, pardon me, seven priests shall bear seven trumpets, rams of horns before the ark. But in the seventh day, you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. And it shall come to pass when they make a long blast with the rams horn that when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all of the people with a great shout, then the wall of the city will fall down and the people shall go every man straight before him. Father again, we thank you and we praise you and we love you. We thank you for the call on our lives, what we're all about. We thank you for our past and our present. Lord, we pray for our future. And Lord, we pray that the days of Lord, our movement ahead would be greater than ever. That the foundation upon which we have been built upon and inspired by and has done so much so far would just continue greatly and wonderfully. Or that before us walls that you still want to fall, things that you want to accomplish, Lord, that they would happen. That you would look at us, Lord, in our place, in our life, in ministry and where we've been in the years and some of us decades. But Lord, that the days ahead, the cities before us, the things to do would be as inspiring as ever. So feed us and teach us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. You know, here as we look at Jericho and the children of Israel coming in, and we all know the story so well, so I'm not saying anything again that we all don't know. But first of all, the important thing to look at and just to reflect on a little bit, and that's all we'll be doing a little this morning, is there is the Lord in verse two, he tells Joshua, he says, the Lord said to Joshua, see I have given Jericho unto your hand. Here's Joshua's out and he's pondering there, you know, the battle ahead, pondering the city, pondering the, what is ahead of him? What is it that is still yet to be done, you know, with the children of Israel? You kind of get through, you know, the Jordan you get through and you kind of, you see some great breakthroughs and things and kind of it happened, but you realize that the real battles are still ahead of you. And here we have Joshua, he's an older man now. He was, you know, 40 years earlier, he was a younger man when he went out there with Moses. But now he's an older man and yet here he has this something before him now. And it's just before him as an older man, but the Lord looks at him and he says, Joshua. And he says to him, he says, I have given Jericho. You know, the most wonderful thing to stop and think about in life is that Jericho is a gift. Ministry is a gift, it's not earned. It's not rewarded because of anything that we are. If God spared not his own son for us, will he not give us all things? If he already gave us his son, the life of his son on the cross, what now would he hold back from us? What good gift will he hold back? And it's something there to realize, God, you have given me by far the greatest. I am the recipient of it. To stop and think, every one of us should be thrilled. My name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. You're here as a child of God and realize you are among a minority of human history. There to have your name written down by his own blood, to have one who now is risen from the dead, who sits at the right hand of the majesty on high, whoever lives to make intercession for you, this very moment presenting us faultless. And here as he is before us, he vows, not only I'll present you faultless, I'm going to come back for each one of you. I'm going to conform you to my very image. You'll share my likeness and fully. I mean, imagine that and then I'll bring you, I'll give you a home in glory that outshines the sun, we'll be together forever and ever. And then to add to that, you could think, what more could there be than that? But to add to that, that in this life, he gives us the opportunity to serve him. He comes to us and he'll actually entrust to us a portion of what is his greatest prize is bride. I will entrust my bride to you. I will entrust their lives, a portion of my flock to you to oversee, to help lead them out of their wildernesses and into their promised land in Christ, to their position, their place, to their seat in him. What an honor. How do you begin to evaluate that, that the callings and the blessings and the things and being able to tell people who they are, who loves them, where they're going and what's their lives, homes, marriages, families, transformed. See them set on an entirely different direction for time and eternity. What an incredible thing it is. And what a gift that God gives to us. He says, here, I've given it to you. It's just a gift. You don't earn it. You have nothing to do with it. But it's also a gift, though, that he bases there on simply taking certain steps. That is something there he looks at and he says, this one, you know, all of this was done on my call. You know, I did. I went to the cross. I died. I rose again. I ever lived to make intercession for it. I do all of that. But now, the real inheriting of the gift, the enjoyment of the gift, the entering into the blessing of the gift, it is something now he said, looks there and he says, now, your foot must tread upon it. This involves you putting out one foot in front of another. And this is not something that he's just talking about, moral men, good men, honest men, loving men, good husbands, you know, good fathers, are ethical or gracious or spiritual. These are all things that just for a godly man. But he's looking at the qualities of somebody who says, I want to help others enter into the land. I want a shepherd to flock. To them, he looks at that and he says, all these other things are important. They're great for godliness and a walk into life. They must be there, of course. But he says that this person here now, the Joshua's, there's an act of faith. There is something that distinguishes them even from others. In the sense that they take steps of faith. They move out in faith. They're a group of people that God separates unto himself for the work of the ministry. That's what Paul tells us in Ephesians 4, that he gave some apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, and then of course elders and deacons and other places there. But he says, until we all come into the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, the perfect man, unto the measure and the statue of Christ, he takes out of this gathering of the body of Christ, of those who love him and then he challenges some. He separates some there and he says, do you want to be a Joshua? Do you want to bring people into their life, into their inheritance, into their place of blessedness, into their calling? And as he does this work of separating, it's the most wonderful thing to be able to be asked, but it's also something in the asking, in the inclusion of it, there with it, is something he says, will you pay a price? There is something to it where I want to separate you. And as it says there, he gave some to be. And here there, as he's gathered to get out of his church, he picks out of his church some that he gives these roles to, a ministry and a leadership. But as he does this, he's somebody there that he is personally prepared now, not just simply to take all the steps of faith and growth in their own maturity and their own personal growth, but now they're looking and separating and saying their lives, separate it out, take me where you want to go, I will take some steps of faith that others can follow in. And these are not, the things that God has given you, they're not for the weak-footed in faith. There's somebody there that you realize, no, I don't, that's not me. You know there, I mean, I like Joshua, I want to be with Joshua, I want to follow Joshua, I want to go in after Joshua. But when there's somebody who said, no, I feel you've separated me, I feel a divine call upon my life. And I believe as well that this is an unending call. This is not a call that happens there and you did it, you've been there, done that. I think one of the dangers, the question has been posed, is there, what happens to a second and a third generation? Why is it that many movements they start off and that they can die down? Well, simply believing, to me I believe it's when the Joshua's that did that, stop doing it. They're all, I've been there, done that. That's one of the killers of it. I don't think this ever ends, it never ended for Joshua. Never ended for Caleb. Caleb there was somebody at 85 years, give me this mountain, I'm not done. I haven't just simply been there, I haven't just done that. I still want to be going out. I think when there's that point that we just want to tell other people what we did. But no, I don't do that anymore. Oh boy, those were scary days, oh man. God bless you, you go do it now. I'm through with it, I've been there, done that. No, this is something there where somebody has an ending faith in God's call. Never ended for Abraham and never ended for Joseph. It never ended for Moses. Moses actually even asked for it to end kind of. Moses there, he actually, there he came to God. It's in Deuteronomy and he says, just let me see the land, take me over there. I just, and God actually gets angry with him. He says enough of that, speak no more to me of it. Go up to Piska, look around and you get in and then the subject is ended, Moses. Moses wanted, can I retire? I'd just like to retire. I'd just like to go over there on the other side. Can I, maybe hoping for a moment there that God would give him a little house over there while he didn't beg, all of ears and vineyards he didn't plant, they don't want it. They're not going for it, but I do. I'd like a little lazy boy out in the back porch, look out over there at the land and just kind of sit out in the morning, have my latte and say, could you imagine if Moses spent his last 20 years sitting in a lazy boy over in the promised land all by himself? But rather than that, we're somebody there. God says enough of that. Now you go and encourage Joshua. You go equip Joshua, you tell him and you inspire him. Don't stop this Moses, it can't end. If you let it end, that's where it will end. And when somebody realizes there that they never ended for these biblical characters that we so deeply honor and an effective life of ministry, it'll always involve faith. If it doesn't, if it never gets to where we think, well, if I'll step out in faith, but then I want to someday have sight enter into it. God says, no, without faith it's always impossible to please God. What's whoever is not of faith is still sin, is still wrong. And not to be that in our older years, that we can inspire more and more and more people all the time. That faith, that's the key that what sees rivers open in the Bible, walls crumbling down, giants are killed, fire comes down from heaven. By faith. And when people look there and realize that must never end. And the concept of still living by it, of always living by it. Alan Redpath used to say faith is a step in the dark onto a rock. That there's something there that you still can't see it, you still don't know exactly what it is, where it is, but there's a voice that says behind you, this is the way, walk you in it. And that we never do that. Heaven's retirement, heaven is when it ends. I remember well, and almost getting close to 50 years ago now when my wife and I, and we can go through all our stories, we all have them. But when we ended up going over to England to a small Bible school with no accreditation to it, Alan Redpath said he wanted to take us and mentor us and he taught in the school, we'd go to it. We ended up selling everything we had, selling it all. And then going off to England. And a year later, I came back, you know, with all this time I'm growing in the word, I'm loving it, my faith is kind of growing until I'm flying back home. And when I'm flying back home from this, I'm writing about faith and all the things I'm growing and sharing with my family. But when it came down to coming home, I had $20 in a pregnant wife coming home on a plane, not coming to Los Angeles where we lived, but coming to Oakland. And I was gonna have to call my dad and say, Dad, I've got a lot of faith, but right now it's kind of in you. And we, and in, I didn't plan well. I ran out of money in Oakland. Can you send me some money or get us home or a bus or something? And I'm just praying, I'm just struggling, God, what have I done wrong? We are getting off the plane in Oakland, we're walking there to go get our luggage and all of a sudden my mom and dad appear there. They're in Oakland. I didn't even know they knew when our plane arrived and where it was, they figured it out, they found a record of our ticket and they thought they would surprise us. They come up and say, hi, and we were surprised, believe me. And they, and he said, look, we're sorry, we just thought of ourselves, it would be so much fun to come and pick you guys up, drive back home together, stay at a couple of bed and breakfasts and just kind of have a talk. But if you guys want to go ahead, buy yourselves, we just, no, no, we're good with that. We'll go with you. But having these times, you know, that you look at and realize how important these times are. Times there that when I go from there, I go to Talbot Seminary, I'm there for a year and a half and yet all the time I'm struggling. I'd made a commitment to my father-in-father law. I'd go to seminary, but I'm going to it and it's just not for me. I'm just struggling with it. And here though, through the struggle of, you know, you're with the thing there, I finally just decided, I don't know where we're going, but I know God, it's somewhere else. And there's my wife and I struggled with it, made the decision. One time, I said to Chuck, you know, I've dropped out of seminary. I just kind of been hanging around with little things. He'd asked me to do a couple of things and he said, what, you dropped out of cemetery? I'll never forget that. And I said, well, I guess maybe so. And he said, why don't you come with me? I've been thinking about it. And then, you know, here at the time, so often, you're just, something is just all, it's ending, but there at the very time that something may be ending. A whole new road maybe begins to open up. And there I am for, you know, for four years, but my heart, the whole time, it's really wrapped up as awesome and wonderful things are there at Costa Mesa, the most exploding times of years. All that I was, my heart was, I wanted to create a school like that we'd had where my life was so transformed, where I learned so much and I grew so much. And then, you know, we found, it was called the Monty Corona up in Twin Peaks, got to Chuck and the board to go up and look at this thing. And then, you know, you can convince them to go ahead and buy it and make a school, conference center. And here I'm going, I'll never forget Chuck walking me around the parking lot, because at the time when he would leave, he'd have me do Sundays and at the time, they were exploding down there. It was kind of like the most awesome thing to do, but I just knew this is where God wants me. And Chuck said, why do you want to go up? You know, I went to school and I'm all for that, but you want to go why? I just know I want to invest in lives. I just know, one of the elders talked to me, he says, Don, do you realize it's kind of like you're working in the biggest McDonald's in the world and now you want to open up a little hamburger stand in a cul-de-sac? Where are you going to go from this? I said, I don't know. I just know I want to invest in lives. And, but we just watched the times where God has changed and then I announced after, then I started Lake Arrowhead and then I announced the Lake Arrowhead. I'm here for a time. I don't know how long, but as soon as we get leadership, I'm going to go. Where are you going? I have no idea. We literally raised up Mark Foreman and Mark was equipped to take it and we'd all agreed before they said, where are you guys? I don't know. Then that's the exciting times in life. We ended up going down to Redlands. Every place I'd ever went, my last check is what I took. And it wasn't like, hey, well, we'll invest or we'll help, they were, they were wonderful. But at the same time, no, God will take care of me. I look back how stupid I was now, I go to take care of it. This incredible sense. You know, I mean, some people have different struggles in different areas of life. For some reason to me, it's not been that hard to do this. But then, you know, whether, then when Redlands is up and it's going and it's wonderful. And I'm telling Jean for two years, we're done here. She went, I'm done here. Yeah, we're done here. But I got my women's group, I got this. I got that, honey, that sin. We need to go. You know, but we'd always decided we would never do anything until we had total agreement between this. We spent two years talking and praying. And then when, then long story, but we end up up in San Jose and we're Chuck, you know, I told Chuck, he said, Chuck, I'm leaving Southern California. You what? Yes. Where are you? I have no idea. That's why I mentioned to you, you have any idea? He said, you know, if you've got any thoughts out there, I just know we've got plenty of things here. I want to, I said, I feel like I'm a guy that wanted to be a surgeon and he wanted to save lives and that he wanted to be on the front lines and he went and he got his degree and he sat under some great physicians. And then one day he ends up in Palm Springs doing facelifts. I don't want to do that. I want to go where do we need? Where's something needed? And he says, you know, I got just the place. San Jose. There's a church up there. They've asked me to, you know, we would take it over, nobody would touch it. They're over $8 million in debt and it's been through a terrible splits and all these things and we will loan you the 3 million they need immediately, you can refinance it later if you will go up there and take it. He says that maybe the door opened for the, you know, for, you know, the middle of the state, Central Valley, Nareas. I can remember looking at him saying, Chuck, are you crazy? I looked at him and we said, are you serious? He says, yes, I'm serious. I said, but Chuck, we don't, we plant churches. We plant them, we start them, babies. There's a whole lot more new births in the Bible than resurrections. What are we doing? I said that to him. And I said, you, he said, Tony, you're the guy to do it. You know, God bless you, go. But then all through the years, then when we came, John, then when Chuck had asked me at different times to come back with him to Costa Mesa. And it's a long, long story, I won't go into it, but I'd told him before, if Wendy, you feel it's time for you to go, I'll come and help you, but I'll never stay. I know that's not where I'm going. And he'd asked me a couple of times to come back. Are you leaving? Well, when the time comes, if you want me, then call me. He finally calls me and John Corson, would you come? I said, is it time? He said, yes, it's time. Okay, I'm coming. Down we came. And then he got all excited, rejuvenated. You know, he found Ponsadaleon, found of youth. And it was his choice, he had every right to do it to me. And so, but John and I said, hey, God bless you. You know what, we're gonna go do something else. Then I went through a couple, did I walked out literally out of the office, 55 years old? No idea where my next paycheck, what I'm gonna do, where I'm gonna go. None whatsoever. And he said, where you going? I don't know, no plan. And there is a, walked out. You know, one thing led to another and kind of moved here, pillar to post, and then he ended up asking me to help with a mess in Laguna. And then it turned around, we had $512,000 in the bank. The problem was solved, the church is together. I said, God bless you, I'm going. Done here. And where are you going? I don't know. At that time, Chuck said, you know, Kay and I can't really do this anymore. We can't travel, would you help the movement? And we'd look, say, well, we'll do it for a year. That was 13 years ago. Yeah, but anyway, but the point of it is, it's to me, sometimes the most exciting thing in life is, and I'm not saying you need to move around, you know, to be in God's will. I'm not advocating going from one place to another or leaving a ministry, but I am advocating constantly seeking fresh things for God to have you do. Constantly launching out in faith. Constantly being challenged. That to me is what I have always had. There's something in my blood, I need to be afraid. I need to have something step out there within my DNA or something that says, God, I need to know. I'm in your will. And there's a part of me that wants to be cruise control like anybody else, but at the same time, it's something there, the most exciting thing. I look now at this, you know, CBI, just the opportunity for a new school. We want, maybe, you may be a pastor, you know, and we're just going to be taught by pastors. Maybe something, you know something, I need something fresh to do. Go to Gerald, say, hey, can I help? It's this phenomenal facility he's got out there. It'll take 160. We're just going to do about 60, and then it's incredible. We're going to update the rooms in it, but it's got all these rooms and bathrooms and full kitchen, everything in it needed for a school. But we're going to update the rooms. It's like 4,000 bucks to do a room. Maybe you want to say, you know something, go to Gerald, go to, hey, we want to donate towards a room, we'll pick up one of those rooms. Or we want to go teach in it, or how could we help? We want to go inspire young people. We want to go help equip and send people. I want to send people from my church. I want to jump back into it one way or another. And I think when there's somebody that says, you know, that we need something for our own faith, for our own heart. You know, and I look back at this movement, how wonderful it is, because I think there's this tendency within us at a time where we get to where, you know, I just, I just, I'd like to find a church, a place that I can kind of settle into. And almost like Moses asking for, I just want to go to the other side. I'm tired and more. I'll tell you, we get tired. Sometimes you get incredibly tired. We get tired. We hit the wall. And oftentimes we come back and we travel over 10,000 miles a month. Have three years. A lot of people think, well, that's cool. It is not cool. It is not cool. I don't care if I ever see another airplane, another airport, another, you know, hotel again. I love no place honestly in the world that I've got, we've got almost 2 million miles we haven't even used. They're just sitting there. I've traveled, I've got over 2 million miles on American. I've got over a million point four miles with Delta. And I asked my wife, honey, I'll take you to Paris. I'll take you to Rome. I'll take you anywhere you want to go. As long as they have a youth hostel, you know, or something, when we get there, I got the miles. And she says, I want to go home. I just want to go home. I said, so do I. I rest, sit there, have a can of soup and moan, sleep in my own bed where I can find my own refrigerator two in the morning. But at the same time, when we look and say, that's not why we're here. That's not why we're here. And remind ourselves, you know, of wanting to step out. And here, he's told you, and you do it in obedience, he says, I'm going to tell you where you put one foot after another. You don't go to the right. You don't go to the left. And if there's no obedience, there's no Jericho. It takes faith, and faith takes obedience. It's confirmed. Your faith is confirmed when you step out, when your weight shifts from one leg to the other, and then you put it on that rock by faith, one foot after another, one step after another. As here, he has them go out, and you will march around. And right around the city. It's not like you're going to get up over there on the hill, and you guys sing up there. Get your trumpets out there. Have a great worship service a mile away, you know, and things, and dream about the city. You go down, and you walk around that city. And could you imagine that? He says to them, he says, you shall compass the city. You men of war, and you shall go around the city once, and you'll do it six days. Seven priests shall bear the ark. Seven trumpets, the rams horns. The seventh day, you shall compass the city seven times, and you shall bow with the trumpets. And here he looks at them, and he says, I want you to walk right by that wall. I want in the people at the end of it, sevens, but for six days, don't say a word. For six days, you be quiet. No shouting, no trumpet. There, and he reiterates that over. But then it tells us, there down in verse nine, in the arm men, they went before the priest that blew the trumpets and the reward, and they came after the ark, and the priest going on blowing the trumpets. But here they followed that ark in silence. And there was the ark, and there's the wall. There's the ark, there's the wall. Each step, there's the ark, there's the enemy. A wall there that they say could take several chariots or a breast at the top of it. And there is the enemy is looking down, staring at you, whether you felt like these giants in the land rear grasshoppers. He said, look at it, look at it, look at it. Walk around that wall. Six days, walk around it. It's either going to paralyze you, it's either it is going to absolute. Well, you can't take another step. I'm not going out today, I've had enough. Where fear is just overcome. Or a somehow or another that ark. And God told about the ark, he says, there will I commune with thee and thee with me. You're going to learn to fix your eyes upon me. You're going to look at the priest. You're going to look at worship. You're going to learn even to do it silently. And there the seventh day you encompass the city. He tells them seven times in verse 15. And the seven times, the seventh, the priest blew the trumpets. And the Joshua said to the people, shout, for the Lord has given you the city. Only he said, tells them there to rehab. She shall be saved in her family. And he says, and then also he told them, he says, keep yourself accursed in the thing. He said, the silver and the gold and the vessels and the brass and the iron that consecrated to the Lord. He says, leave that. Or that'll be set aside for the treasury. But then there, after six days, the seventh day comes. And something is stirred within the people. They're sick and tired of the wilderness. They're sick and tired. They're not going back there. We've had enough of it. We're here. We're in. We're committed. We've been putting our feet in front of one another for six days. We're accustomed to it. We've seen the enemy. We're aware of the enemy. But the people shouted. The priest blew the trumpets. And it tells us there that they shouted. And with a great shout, and the wall came down flat. So that the people went up into the city. Every man straight before him. And they took the city. And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city. Both men and women, young and old, ox and sheep and ass with the edge of the sword. And then they saved those out of the city. And then they burned it with fire. But they did it in obedience. Faith, they're engaged in obedience. Faith there that comes there to that place where it takes a step and says, I want to keep stepping out. I want to continue going. And here, of course, there was one achin who decided he didn't need to be fully obedient. And they suffered for that. But you know in the ministry, there's really three kinds of people, I think, out there. That is that there's people that went and were never sent. And then there are people who were sent and never went. And then there's people who were sent and went. And to me, we only live one life. That's it. When I first met Jean and fell in love with her, her mother, used to always quote to me, soon one life will have come and passed, only what's done for Christ will last. Inspire him to say, give it your all. Live everything. And then, of course, that continues on for all of us, all of our lives. And then lastly, the patience that they had. Here they surrounded the city for seven days. It wasn't something they just went right on in, blew the horn, boom, shouted out, and it all happened. They let them think, God let them think about it every day, quietly as they walked and they looked. And as the walls around them, there they stood, they probably grew bigger every day. The enemy in some ways, the size, the chariots there, the arming, the threatening, the power. Probably every day, we've got six more days, we've got five more days of this. We're like grasshoppers and yet to be silent. And here, Joshua commanded them, he says in verse 10, you shall not shout. It shall not proceed out of your mouth until I tell you to shout. You'll be quiet. You'll not make any noise with your voice. Nor shall any word silently. You'll just go. And here, Moses had already taught them and told them so many times. This was their land. It was a gift. It will be given you. Deuteronomy 4, 37, Moses told them, he says, and because he loved thy fathers, he chose his seat after them, to drive out nations before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to give thee their land for an inheritance as it is this day. Moses looked, he says, that over there that you're so afraid of, it's already yours, this very day. But yet at the same time, though it's still, it takes there, you know, taking that step, and then sometimes waiting, sometimes there for days you go around waiting and waiting, when's the wall, when do we get to shout, when does the wall come down? Hebrews 6, 12 tells us, he says, that you be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises of God. And he says in verse 15, so after they had patiently endured, they inherited the promise. Sometimes the hardest thing to the world to do is to maintain silence, waiting for God's appointed time to do what he wants to do, and believing him all the way for it. You know, I see enough gray hairs around here, there's plenty of us, and here I am at 70 years old, but I can look back and realize how many times God seemed to move so slowly. It's humorous. I can remember Chuck used to talk about how things would be so slow, and how true that is, because when you say that you're right, it is so slow. It's you're wanting your church to come together and it's so slow. When does it come together? You know, when are we going to get a building? When are we going to get a staff together, and it's so slow coming, and so hard? When are we going to get finances to do what we've got to do? It's when are we going to get our children raised? You know, when are we going to raise our children? When are we going to grow up? When everything seems to just go grindingly slow for so much of our life? Say, God, speed this thing up. You're so stinking slow, God. What are you doing? What are you so, you know, I'm in, where are you? And he just says, be quiet. Just keep walking. Just keep going. And then one day it's kind of at a rapid pace. Warp speed. You realize your life is nearing the other end. You find yourself saying, Lord, slow down. You're going so fast now. You've got 12 grandchildren now and one great-grandchild. And looking at this thing and realizing now with our lives. But on how we want them to change, they don't change. Why don't they change fast enough? It's like married sometimes. Women marry men thinking that they'll change them, and they don't change. And men marry women thinking they won't change, and they do. But just a joke. It's a joke you could stick it in a sermon. I don't agree with the joke myself, but I think it's a funny one. But if some things that you just received in life either it's just flying by, or it's going so slow, rather than just sufficient under the day is the evil there of God. It says, where is your foot to go? Not right now. And put it out and do it silently, and silently, and silently. And as the years go by, you look back and you watch God answer all these things. And how wonderful it is to see it continue and carry on. And I just, for us, I feel like we are at a place now in a movement where we look and God looks at us. And we want him now to go on. Lord, another generation, another generation. But I think God looks at us and says, what's done? What's up with yours? What's up with yours? One of the things that we have inherited so much. You look at Chuck, and he was this ultimate risk taker. He just kept doing and doing and doing and doing. Let's buy this, let's do that, let's get a radio station, let's venture off into this, and we'll get another conference center, let's add this. And just kept doing it. Wasn't until the very end he kind of slowed down doing that. I remember one time I asked him, because he just kept on doing all this. I said, Chuck, when's the last time you took a big risk? He says, what do you mean? And I said, well, I'm 24 years old. You put me in your pulpit on Sunday morning. When's the last time you put a 24-year-old in your pulpit? And he said, you were the last one. He had a good sense of humor. But I still don't know what he meant behind it fully, but I got a good idea. But on how that when we take these risks and we put people, how do we help them? How do we get them out there? How do we invest in them? Do it with all of our heart. I'm not going down easy. We should be what I want to do. When we were young, they used to have a word, full tilt boogie. I'm going full tilt boogie, or something in the 50s and 60s. I want to go full tilt boogie, in a sense, with the Lord all the way to the end. I don't want to have people looking to me and say, you know, he used to do stuff. I want them to look and say still doing stuff. Amen? Lord Jesus, we thank you for these days. And Lord, we pray that there would be this great challenge on our lives when we ask the question, could all this work end with this generation? And I believe you smile and look back and say, well, that's kind of up to you. It's your choice if it ends. It's how you live now. It's how you invest your heart, your life. Instead of looking around and saying, what's up and coming, to look it within and say, Lord, how do I help? What's up and coming? How do I invest in them? How do I pour into lives as all of our lives were invested in by those before us? Lord, may we be investors. May we be pouring our hearts and our lives. Maybe we be ones at the end. We can say, I'm poured out as a drink offering. It's all out there. We left nothing behind. Lord, use us and call us and strengthen us. Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful time we were together and all those that have served us. And Lord, for this movement and for your love, your grace, your patience with us, your long-suffering challenges, strengthen us, fill us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.