Over The Jordan

Reading today from the book of Joshua chapter one, "Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shall thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein; for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, Pass through the host, and command the people saying, Prepare you victuals; for within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land, which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it." (Read: Joshua 1:1-11) You know it's very striking as to removing the veil that Paul spoke of as to being over the face of the people in the reading and the observing of the Old Testament and the ways of the Old Testament. Seeing here that after the death of Moses, Joshua, having placed the Spirit of Moses upon the people, it was very obvious that here Joshua being very symbolic of Christ was now ready to over into Canaan crossing the Jordan, telling the people that within three days. And it's very obvious that is he said prepare ye vituals, that is Jesus set at the supper, at the last supper, the Lord's supper, He said, Take and eat of this. It is my broken body. Take and drink of this for this is my blood. Unless ye eat of my flesh and drink of my blood ye have no life in you. But this is life, he said, as to Christ Jesus being made the Word. As God being personified in a human body. And in the beginning being the Word, the Word expressing itself as to let there be in Genesis, and so there was. And again the Word this time expressing itself through human instrumentality saying, He that heareth my words and believeth on me has passed from death unto life and shall never come into condemnation, for My words are spirit and life. And he that heareth my Words hath passed from death unto life. Then seeing this we're made to realize that as it was with Joshua, taking up from where Moses left off that when we come to Calvary that this Jesus, the prophet liken to Moses, symbolically speaking as to being in the image of the first man Adam, was to be delivered for offenses, hath thus through Calvary released the life as to the great Holy Spirit on the inside of that body. And that great Spirit hath come over death as to the sin of the soul, as to the intellectual confinement into which it went because of the sins of mankind at the expulsion there at the Garden. And so then that is today as the day of release that is to say Calvary. And now the Spirit of Christ that was in that body that fulfilled every jot and tittle of the law has come into your heart as the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of God that the law might be fulfilled in you and He hath come to redeem them that were under the law becoming a curse for them in that the Bible said, Cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree. And therefore being made a curse for the people, he hath delivered them from the law that will believe on him. So then today as it was said of David of old, Blessed is the man unto whom God will not impute sin, that is the born again believer as he foresaw it. Blessed is the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works as to the born again believer; and blessed is he unto whom God imputeth righteousness by faith without the deeds of the law which is he that is born again. And so then inasmuch as the law worketh wrath, because transgression of the law is sin, then when the law is taken out of the way, fulfilled every jot every tittle, folded up and laid away at Calvary, then there is no more law, there is no more transgression, there is no more sin, so no more wrath from God, there is no more death because death is the results of sin, and there's no more sin because sin is the transgression of the law. And there is no more transgression of the law because Jesus folded up the law and took it out of the way. And that is why Paul made the statement. We therefore conclude that a man is justified by faith, or that is through the grace of God he is saved, with the grace of God by faith his sins are taken away. So by grace through faith are ye saved and that not of yourselves. It's not of works lest any man should boast. But it is the gift of God. And when they ask, What must they do to work the works of God? Jesus said, This is the fulfillment of all of that. I am the works of the Lord. You believe on me. So then we know that through faith, our new birth we've passed from death unto life, because we're no longer under the law. We are free now from the bondage of the law and we're free from the curse, because Jesus was made a curse for us. Cursed is he that hangeth upon a tree. It started in the old tree of knowledge as to the serpent and then it ends at Calvary, as to the serpent like unto. That is to say Jesus being made sin as to a body of sin to show us what the symbolics were as to Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness. So then that means that Jesus became as a brazen serpent, or that is to as a body of sin that the vipers, that the evil spirits as to the serpents could never bite and penetrate as with the poison. So then though he was made in the image of the serpent as to a generation of vipers, yet He became that as sometimes we refer to it in our country here as the kingsnake that is harmless, that is the to the defender against all other evil poisonous snakes and is the conqueror of all of them. So it's very obvious that here he became as an image of sin, but one that could not be penetrated as to being a brazen image, that is to say the bite of the serpents that was biting the people could not penetrate it. And when the people looked upon the serpent, then they became as to the brazen ones. They became as to the shield that Jesus had become for them passing through the fire to become the brazen one. He had thus conquered the wrath as to that of God and now He was a shield to the weak. So then we realize that as to the brazen serpent, pointing to the big, brazen altar upon which the sacrifice was made as to the evening time of life, and this as to the lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world as John said, so then we receiving this atonement for our sins, know then as the body of the Lord Jesus Christ we're killed all the day long, accounted as sheep for the slaughter, in that we are as to offering up this body through self-denial, to mortify the deeds of the flesh, to give ourselves unto God is to do away with that which is in the image of sin, even the outer man because Jesus killed him at Calvary, therefore we reckon ourselves to be dead unto sin and alive unto God. And we do not have to wait until we lay down in the grave because we are dead by the body of the Lord Jesus, baptized in His lovely name, buried in death with Him, and it's not us that liveth. For we are crucified with Christ. And inasmuch as we died with Him, we're also risen as to have been resurrected with him into a new life, old things having passed away and behold all things are now new and we are a new creature in Christ. God through Christ Jesus having taken away the curse, restoring to us that was lost, delivering us from him even Satan who was stronger than we, delivered us from the darkness of that kingdom into the marvelous kingdom of light, having given us all things that pertain unto life; therefore beloved, we should glorify Christ in our body, in our spirit to love Him.

By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.

Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.

Holiness Unto The Lord