The Spiritual Warfare Of The Church As The New Man
Message Five
The Formation of a Corporate Joshua
to Possess the Good Land by Defeating the Satanic Forces
Opening Word of the Prophesying Meeting
Reading the verses in each day.
Reading the main points in the outlines.
Pray-reading the verses:
Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light.—Col.1:12
Be strong and take courage, for you will cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them.—Josh.1:6
Word of Appetizer
As the good land, Christ is ready to be taken and possessed by His believers; what do we need to do to gain the all-inclusive Christ?
Satan, the enemy of God, has been doing his utmost to hinder the people of God from enjoying Christ as the all-inclusive One. There is an exceedingly real spiritual warfare in which we must engage. To gain the all-inclusive Christ, we need to be a corporate Joshua, fighting the battle, taking the land, and enjoying Christ as our inheritance.
Spiritual Burden
“We all need to know what the recovery is, where the recovery is, and what kind of persons can take the recovery on. We all need to see that in the Lord’s recovery today we are on a battlefield. We should be today’s Joshua and Caleb, fighting against Satan’s aerial forces so that we can gain more of Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ, setting up and spreading the kingdom of God so that Christ can come back to inherit the earth”
The Revelation of the Truth
The good land, the land of Canaan, is a type of the all-inclusive Christ, the Christ who is all and in all and who is everything to us.
If we would possess the good land for the fulfillment of God’s purpose, we must engage in warfare to defeat the satanic forces.
Without the book of Joshua we cannot fully understand the spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6:10-20.
In order to possess the good land and defeat the satanic forces, we need to be formed into a corporate Joshua.
The Experience of Life
Christ is our good land, and God wants us to gain Christ, but there is a layer of devilish, demonic forces between us and the good land; if we would take possession of the good land for our enjoyment, we must defeat these satanic forces.
Satan, the enemy of God, has been doing his utmost to hinder the people of God from enjoying Christ as the all-inclusive One. There is an exceedingly real spiritual warfare in which we must engage; we must fight the battle to gain the all-inclusive Christ.
Practice and Application
Eph.6:11-12 Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil, For our wrestling is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies.
To gain the all-inclusive Christ, we need to be a corporate Joshua, fighting the battle, taking the land, and enjoying Christ as our inheritance.
Using Key Verses to Have a Bird’s-Eye View over the Whole Outline
Key Verses (1)
And you shall eat and be satisfied, and you shall bless Jehovah your God for the good land which He has given you.— Deut 8:10
Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light.—Col.1:12
I The good land, the land of Canaan, is a type of the all-inclusive Christ.
II If we would possess the good land, we must engage in warfare to defeat the satanic forces.
- Only the land of Canaan is a full type, the complete and ultimate type, of Christ; the type of the good land shows that Christ is the all-inclusive One.
- In Colossians Paul employs the concept of the all-inclusive land, speaking of “the allotted portion of the saints”.
- Satan, the enemy of God, has been doing his utmost to hinder the people of God from enjoying Christ as the all-inclusive One.
- We need to be today’s Joshua and Caleb, fighting against and defeating the satanic forces so that we can gain more of Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ, for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose.
Key Verses (2)
Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil, For our wrestling is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies.—Eph.6:11-12
III. Without the book of Joshua we cannot fully understand the spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6:10-20:
- Israel’s fighting against the inhabitants of the land portrays the invisible spiritual warfare that is taking place behind the visible scene on earth.
- That there is a spiritual warfare in the invisible scene behind the visible scene means that in addition to war on the earth, there is a war between God and Satan in the air.
- Christ is in the highest layer, the third heaven, to be our everything as our good land. There is a lower layer of the heavenlies—the air, where Satan as the ruler of the authority of the air is frustrating the people on earth from contacting God and receiving Christ.
- If we would take possession of Christ for our enjoyment, we must fight against and defeat the satanic forces in order to gain more of Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ.
Key Verses (3)
Every place on which the sole of your foot treads I have given to you, as I promised Moses.—Josh.1:3
Be strong and take courage, for you will cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them.—6
And they answered Joshua, saying, All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. As in all things we listened to Moses, so we will listen to you. Only may Jehovah your God be with you, as He was with Moses.—16-17
- In order to possess the good land and defeat the satanic forces, we need to be formed into a corporate Joshua.
- As the good land, Christ is ready to be taken and possessed by His believers; however, there is the need for those who are ready to take Him, possess Him, experience Him, and enjoy Him in His all-inclusiveness.
- Joshua led the children of Israel to enter the promised land and to take it, possess it and enjoy it.
- After being formed, constituted, disciplined, trained, and qualified, God’s people had come to the plains of Moab, where they were waiting to enter into the good land, to take it, and to possess it.
Prophesying Topics—Twelve Topics per Week
D1
T1 Only the land of Canaan is a full type of Christ.(Deut.8:7-10)
(Please explain that the good land, the land of Canaan, is a type of the all-inclusive Christ.)
T2 The all-inclusive Christ is our inheritance.(Col.1:12; Acts.26:18)
(Please explain that in Colossians Paul employs the concept of the all-inclusive land, speaking of “the allotted portion of the saints”)
D2
T1 Satan, the enemy of God, has been doing his utmost to hinder the people
of God from enjoying Christ as the all-inclusive One.(Col.2:8; 18)
(Please explain that in your experience Satan will do whatever he can to keep us from enjoying Christ as the good land.)
T2 We must fight the battle to gain the whole land.(Josh.5:2-6:16)
(Please explain that God’s work is always recovering the land while Satan’s work is always keeping people from enjoying the land.)
D3
T1 We need to be today’s Joshua and Caleb.(Joshua5:2-6:16)
(Please explain that without the book of Joshua we cannot fully understand the spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6:10-20)
T2 Our enemies are not humans on the earth but evil forces in the air.(Eph.2:12)
(How many different layers in the heavenlies are there which Ephesians 2 indicates ?)
D4
T1 God’s people needed to cooperate with God.(Deut.1:21;Num.14:6-9;24;Josh.1:3)
(Please explain that although God had given Israel the good land, Israel still needed to take the land.)
T2 move with God in His move(Josh.1:3)
(Please explain that today God wants to save people, but in order to do this, He needs us to be one with Him according to the principle of incarnation. )
D5
T1 the content of book of Joshua(Josh.1:6)
(The content of book of Joshua is that Joshua led the children of Israel to enter the promised land and to take it, possess it, and enjoy it.)
T2 The pagan tribes which occupied the promised land signify the different
aspects of the natural life.(Exodus23:28-31)
(What are the two matters that God’s driving out of the natural life depends on for us to realize? )
D6
T1 The formation of the children of Israel into an army to fight for God.(Eph.4:16;6:12)
(Please explain that this typifies the New Testament believers’ being built up into the organic Body of Christ to fight for the carrying out of His economy.)
T2 The unique blessing in the whole universe is God Himself.(Eph.1:3-14)
(What is the three steps of God’s blessing us in His Divine Trinity in Ephesians 1?)
