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I'm going to perform a paradox today: I'm going to preach on the importance of teaching. I'm going to paradoxically preach on a paradox.

The scripture is full of paradoxical principles. A paradoxical principle is something that seems backward to normal logic and doesn't seem to make sense and yet is true. Probably the most famous example are found in the words of Jesus concerning the kingdom of God when He said "the first shall be last and the last shall be first." Sounds backwards. Sounds wrong. But, in the kingdom of God, it is right! What Jesus meant is those who are the least shall be the greatest. People who are always self-promoting and who have "I" trouble is not the people that God chooses to bless the most! But an humble, serving attitude toward even the least of others is the kind of God-like experience that He exalts.

Here's another paradox of scripture: Jesus said "He who loses his life shall save it, but he who saves his life shall lose it." In other words, a person who resists submitting to God because they don't want to lose their life, will lose it to sin and for eternity. But a person who "loses his life" or gives up his will for the things of God will find that he has saved it in this life and for eternity to come. Too many times, we don't see the wisdom of the Word of God until we actually obey it and then we can't imagine not having obeyed it because we find that it is a much better life, doing it God's way! Jesus said that he came to bring "life and that more abundantly." You really haven't lived until you have submitted everything to Him. In submitting your will, you are actually gaining freedom, joy, and life!

Here's one more:

The principle is this: whatever you think belongs to you, the easiest way to see if it really does, is to send it away. If it comes back to you, then it was really yours in the first place. If you cast your bread upon the waters and it doesn't come back to you, then it wasn't yours in the first place. That's a good paradoxical principle to understand in light of relationships, money, authority, blessings, compliments, and anointings! For example, if a person is always having to convince others of their authority or anointing, then they probably really don't have that authority or anointing because they will not turn loose of it!

So according to the Word of God, to receive we must give, to save our life we must lose it, to be first we must be last, and to own something we must be willing to relinquish control. Tonight, I want to "treach" about another paradoxical principle that we don't talk about as much and that is that "to go forward in God, we must go backward." Sounds crazy. Sounds backward and it is to human logic and carnal things, but to advance spiritually, we must go backwards. Let me explain with an illustration and there is no better illustration of this principle than in the story and book of Joshua.

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Joshua was the leader of the Israelites after the great Moses. He took over with one job duty: to lead the people of God into the Promised Land and to take the land from the enemy and divide it up among the tribes. This exciting time is recorded in the book of Joshua and began with Joshua telling the priests to carry the ark of the covenant into the Jordan river and the waters parting for them just as the Red Sea did for Moses 40 years back. Get the picture here of how exciting it was to be an Israelite: after living all of your life in tents in the wilderness waiting for the doubters to die, they were finally getting a land of their own, with houses and gardens and vineyards!

The first city that they had to face was the largest of the land, Jericho. When the city heard how God had separated the Jordan River for the Israelites, they shut the gates to their city and placed their army around their formidable walls. In fact, the walls were so large and wide that they held chariot races around the tops! This was a big city which almost killed itself with mirth when they saw the Israelis come up to the wall and silently begin to march around it as God commanded them. For seven days, they were to march around the walls and on the seventh day, go around seven times. After they did so, they were to give a terrific shout of praise to God while the priests blew their trumpets and God said that He would cause the walls to fall! Each person was to then enter into the city and gather up all the spoils: the clothes and gold and silver and animals and such and everything from Jericho was to go to the house of the Lord! It was the first city and so the firstfruits were to be "holy unto the Lord." The loot from every other city in their conquest, would be divided among the people, but Jericho was especially for the Lord!

Everything went as God said it would and a great victory was won on the seventh day. As the people shouted and the trumpeters sounded, the mighty walls of Jericho fell flat and the people scrambled inside to gather the valuables for the house of the Lord! The Israelis may have been a little nervous about attacking the promised land before Jericho, but after they saw how God was on their side, any inhibition was gone! They eagerly looked forward to the next enemy city, the city of Ai. The city was small in name and size and so some of the fighting men proposed that Israel only send a small force against the town so the others could rest up for the next battles. Joshua agreed and so the small force attacked the little town of Ai.

But something went wrong. As they were attacking, God caused a panic to come upon the mighty men of Israel and everyone of them began to drop their weapons and run, the little army of Ai thought it was their fighting that was doing it so they opened the gates of the city and chased the men, killing 36 of their best men. When the defeated warriors reached camp and told of what had happened, Joshua fell on his knees asking God what was wrong. God responded by telling Joshua to get off of his knees because God wasn't the problem, the problem was that someone had disobeyed the commandments of God in Jericho and had secreted some gold, silver, and clothing that was supposed to be God's. God then told Joshua "if you don't get the sin out of the camp, I will no longer be with you!"

Joshua woke up the next morning and caused the leaders of the tribes to pass before him. As the tribe of Judah passed before him, God spoke to them and said the thief is in this one. Then one by one each family passed by until God told Joshua which family it was. Then as the members of this family passed by, finally they came to the man Achan. Joshua commanded him to praise the Lord, and the man could not because he knew that he was guilty. Finally he confessed that he had taken some silver, gold, and clothes and hid them under the floor of the tent. The stolen things were found and brought to the house of the Lord. Then Achan along with his wife, children, and animals were stoned to death and their bodies burned with fire. Only then did God stay His curse and agree to continue leading Israel in their conquest of the Promised Land.

Sounds harsh doesn't it? But God recorded it in His Word to show us today the importance of simple obedience. Achan wasn't a leader. He wasn't a priest or minister. He was just someone that was a part of the crowd of the people of God. Yet, his willful and unrepented sin that he thought that he had hidden so well kept all of the other millions of Israelites from victory in the Promised Place of God. Point to yourself. Repeat after me: "I have the ability to spark a revival in this church with my obedience." I believe that. You want us to have revival? Then spark one in your life. Get closer to God. Tell others about Jesus! Pray through until your excuses are melted away in the Holy Ghost! But point to yourself again and repeat after me "I have the ability to STOP revival in this church by my disobedience." Maybe disobedience seems a small thing to you, but to God it is the worst thing!

God was hard upon Achan because He wanted to teach us a principle in the spirit. Achan thought that his simple disobedience wasn't really hurting anyone, but before it was done, all of Israel was mourning and scared to step out on God's Word, 36 men from other tribes were dead as well as Achan AND his family members! What he thought was simple turned out to have much worse effects than he ever dreamed of! Sin will always have a much worse effect than you think it will! The principle is this: show me a church that is not having revival and does not have the presence of the Lord moving in it's midst, and you can always trace it back to an individual who decided that a "small disobedience" or "small sin" will not hurt anything. But then that individual effects others into thinking the same thing, and before it is over the majority of the church are hypocritical and God has removed His hand of blessing! We can never underestimate the power of the little, hidden sin in our life! You and I can single handedly become the force that stops a move of God and a revival in this town and community!

Let's go back to Joshua. When they got the sin and deceit out of the camp, they began to have victory again. They went up against Ai again and this time the contest wasn't close. Israel again took over another enemy town without a problem, by separating themselves from sin and obeying the direction of the Lord. There is a distinct link between victory and repentance and between defeat and sin in the scripture. Someone who knows that everything is right between them and God lives in victory despite whatever circumstances are happening around them. Someone who has hidden sin in their life is always fighting for their faith to be renewed and is always fighting depression. I understand that there will be valleys that everyone will face and I understand that it rains on the just and the unjust, but if a person is ALWAYS in the "mulleygrubs" and is ALWAYS depressed and is ALWAYS questioning the promises of God, you can usually trace it back to willful sin bringing a halt to the relationship with God and victory in their life!

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And so when we read our text, you probably didn't get very excited because all it said was that Joshua gathered together all of the people and read every commandment of God -- the good and the bad -- that Moses had written down. Joshua went out of his way to make sure that everyone knew exactly what was expected of them from the Lord. But let me show you why that is exciting.

Joshua and Israel had a pattern going. They had had one great victory, and then one great defeat and then another victory... The defeat had come because in the thrill of a victory, someone forgot about the basics and the first commandments of God. And so Joshua didn't want the pattern to repeat itself. He wanted to keep moving forward in the Promised Land. He wanted to experience victories in his future, so to move forward, he paused and gathered everyone together to remind them of what God had already said. To go forward, he first reminded everyone of what God had commanded in the past. You could say that to go forward, Joshua took the people back.

What makes that exciting is the rest of the chapters. Because Joshua took the time to review the basics and go back to the fundamentals, Israel never suffered another defeat in his tenure again! In fact, in the very next battle, Israel fought against 5 kings and their combined armies and God began to fight for them! When the armies of the kings began to run, God began to cause huge hailstones to fall upon the men! As the sun began to go down, there was still enemy soldiers left to kill, and so Joshua commanded the sun and the moon to "stand still" and for the day not to end until all of the enemy had been destroyed and the amazing thing is that God extended the setting of the sun until the battle had been won!

Now we know that Joshua didn't have his science right because the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa, but God knew what he meant and obeyed it! For the first time, God changed the entire course of the universe temporarily at a man's command! What a great battle! In fact the book of Joshua has this to say about it:

There has never been a day like that one! What a powerful display of God's power and against 5 armies combined! But what we tend to forget is what set up that great victory! That great deliverance was set up by Joshua pausing the campaign to take everyone back to the basic commandments of God! By simply teaching the "first things" again. That's why teaching is so important. Preaching something new may be exciting and powerful and will change your life if you respond to it, but it is teaching the basics, going BACK to the things that you have already learned and making sure that everything is correct that brings the greatest victories!

This principle definitely applies to us today. Jesus said in our other text:

Every "scribe" or "teacher" or "minister" is to be like a householder that brings forth out of his treasure things "new" and "old." In other words, just like a servant that was running the everyday operations of a house would fix a meal using some old dishes and new dishes and some old recipes and new recipes, so must a minister also mix up his delivery. And most of us like "new" revelations. We get tickled when a preacher teaches or preaches on something or puts something in a way that we have never quite heard before. That's all well and good, but don't forget that the old stuff is important too!

You should get just as excited about a Wednesday night bible study on water baptism as you do about a red-hot, revelatory sermon on Sunday night! Why? Because it's not "meatloaf again," it's actually going back to the basics of scripture and making sure that your foundation is solid. In actuality, the teaching is setting you up for victory more than the preaching is! As a young preacher, I am amazed at how quickly people, even myself forget my sermons. If I asked you to name the titles of my last 5 sermons could you do it? Could my wife do it? Could I do it? I don't know! And yet I have heard almost everyone of you refer to something that I said during in a Bible Study! If Preaching is candy, then teaching is spinach! Not quite as appetizing to our "pleasure bone" but doing us more good in the long run! The trick to going forward in God is to continually go back to the basics and refresh ourselves on what is really important!

And Joshua was a success because he learned this lesson very well. In fact, after they had conquered all of the kings and divided up the land and the people were getting settled down, old Joshua did one final thing. He gathered all of the people again together and before they went forward into their new, blessed lives he read them again the word of the Lord and again everything that Moses had written and again reminded them of the commandments of the Lord and then Joshua stated his famous speech:

Perhaps it sounds repetitious but it worked! Because Joshua took the people constantly back to the basics of God's Word, the scripture closes the story of his life with this written about Joshua:

What a terrific testimony! Not only did all of the millions of Israelites serve the Lord faithfully while Joshua was alive but also did so into the next generation, under the leaders who were growing up while Joshua was alive! Because they continually went back, they were able to move forward in God!

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Now let me preach to you.

We've come a long, long way from where God has brought us. We are less than a month away from our three year anniversary as being pastors of this great church. When we were voted into the position of shepherd of this congregation, most of you were lost in sin and didn't even have a clue about what God wanted to do in your life through the power of the Holy Ghost, the Promised Place of God. All of us can say that we've moved forward in God since we first came. God has done a work in our life and is still wanting to work even more! Some of your testimonies reads almost like a fantasy novel for the glee club. God has truly done a miraculous work and given you terrific victories!

But listen to this preacher: it is easier to let sin slip into our lives during revival and victories than in other times. It is easier to allow a small disobedience to find it's way into our heart after the walls of Jericho have just fallen! There's something about a great victory that causes us to become spiritually lazy, and drop our guard. There's something about seeing people baptized in the name of Jesus and filled with the Holy Ghost that makes us take for granted the moving of God's hand in our lives. There's something about things going right that triggers a "no pray" mentality in people. It seems that people tend to be more faithful when they are going through a great trial than when they are experiencing great victory! And the reason that this tends to happen, is when we see great revival and results in our life, we tend to think that we are beyond the basics now. We tend to get a superior attitude that we are beyond such things as basic doctrines, and so because of neglect, they began to slowly slip!

We don't have time to make horrible mistakes, so I'm choosing to learn a lesson from Joshua for my life! I'm going to continue to preach the basics. In the next few months, there are going to be some teaching sessions where I teach things that I have taught before almost word for word. But I'm going to do it because I want to see you victorious! I want to see the Spirit of God move in your life in an even greater way. I want you to move forward in God therefore I must take you backward!

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I find it interesting that when the old disciple John is the last of the twelve left alive and the church was having some issues, that he wrote to them:

First, Second, and Third John do not hold great and deep theological revelations that are not found anywhere else in scripture, but they hold a lot of basic truth such as:

Let me finish this sermon by taking you back to what it takes to have a revival, a harvest, and to personally move forward in God:

1. The most important commandment is still our One God message:

Everything good comes from God and so to serve Him you must know who He is! Jesus must remain the "cornerstone" of our church (Ephesians 2:20).

2. Loving each other is still the second most important commandment and how we show the world that we are His disciples!

3. Obeying Acts 2:38 and thus being born again of the water and the Spirit is still the only way that anyone was ever saved in scripture:

4. Learn the lesson of Jericho: God still deserves the firstfruits and the best of everything. This includes our faithfulness, money, praise, attention, and dreams. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness... (Matthew 6:33)

5. Learn the lesson of Achan: Even the smallest disobedience still halts the working of God in our lives. We must separate ourselves from sinful pleasures and worldly living. We are only as close to God as we are separated from the world!

6. There is no other substitute for prayer and fasting! There is no way around it: if we are going to have revival, then someone must pray and someone must fast! There is no substitute for a daily, personal relationship with God!

7. There is no substitute for faithfulness to church services! We must not forsake the assembling of ourselves together even though it is the manner and custom in today's society (Hebrews 10:25). God's house must be a priority in our lives.

8. Praise and Worship is still the tool that ushers us into the presence of God!

9. Godly anointing only comes when we submit to Godly authority! ALL of us from the pastor down needs to be accountable and in submission to someone! Furthermore, authority is a chain and so we only submit to Jesus Christ as much as we submit to the human authority that He has placed over us.

10. Winning souls is still the most important thing in life, period. Sowing seeds must be a part of our everyday life. Soulwinning is still the most unselfish thing that you can do!

11. Unforgiveness is still the most devastating sin in a Christian's life because it brings all of our past sins back upon us until we forgive! Bitterness is still the leading cause of people walking out on God!

12. He has gone to prepare a place for us and Jesus Christ is still coming back for a church that hath "made herself ready." We still must "endure to the end" through some things in order to be saved!

Maybe these things seem basic. Maybe they seem boring. But if you are looking for a newer formula for revival that's going to take you further in God you won't find it! If you are ready to get to the next level, then those twelve things are still the key to getting there! It may sound crazy, it may sound foolish, but it is absolutely true and like Joshua you can live your life by it:

To go forward, we must go back. To move on in Jesus, we must make the basics alive in our life again!