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one from each tribe, took each a stone, and set them up as a sign, to tell the story of how God brought them over that stream into the promised land.

Instead of leaving at once for Jericho, they stopped to keep the Passover. They were in no hurry, and were willing to wait and worship God. The Passover lamb is killed, and they keep the Passover; and after they have worshiped, they start for Jericho.

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Jericho was shut up. Undoubtedly they had heard what great things the Lord had done for the children of Israel; they had got no such God in Jericho. Joshua walks round the walls of Jericho, to see how he is going to take the city, and sees a man standing right in front of him, with a drawn sword over him. The Lord said, "No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life." I suppose that is the first time that came into Joshua's mind; and he stepped right up to him and said, "Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?" No, I am captain of the Lord's host, and come to lead you to victory." Joshua fell on his face, and God talked to him. It is when men are on their faces, that God talks with them. There are so few willing to humble themselves that God may talk with them and give them the blessings from heaven. How much sport they would have made in Jericho; and if there had been a Jericho Herald, it would have ridiculed taking the city in the way proposed. Seven priests were to go in front of the ark and blow seven rams' horns. This is very absurd. I think the people of Boston would have wanted silver or golden trumpets. The idea of our friend Dr. Brooks and Dr. Pentecost and Dr. Webb, and the Catholic Bishop, and the Episcopal Bishop, and the other potentates of the church blowing rams' horns. It would touch our pride. Give them some beautiful trumpets; don't let them go round the city blowing rams' horns. But that is what God told them to do. Those seven priests were to go in front of the ark and blow rams' horns; and then there were 600,000 footmen that followed the ark round the walls of Jericho. Bear in mind, Jericho was to be taken by faith. So they went round for six mornings, and the seventh morning comes; they are up very early, perhaps at daybreak, and the whole city of Jericho is startled. They get up earlier than usual, they can hear the rams' horns blowing; and instead of going into camp after the first circuit of the city, they go round the second, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth time; and the people begin to get onto the walls of the city and look down on them. What does this mean? They have gone round the fifth time; now they go round the sixth time; not a word is spoken. Now they have got round the seventh time; and a shout went up from the 600,000 men. Joshua had given the word, and the walls came tumbling down; and they went up and took that city, and took it by faith, and every man and woman perished in that city. God gave the orders and they just obeyed.

My friends, the lesson we want to learn is obedience to God. If some Boston men had been there, they would have advised taking the city some other way. The Lord said, "Do it," and Joshua did it; and he was successful.

Now they moved to Ai, and they told Joshua they only wanted a few men to take that place; but they were repulsed; and Joshua fell on his face and cried to God, to find out what the difficulties were. He knew the sin was with the people. And when the Church of God does not advance, it is not because God has failed, but because there is something wrong with us. There was treachery in the camp. God told them not to touch one solitary thing in Jericho; but Achan coveted a Babylonish garment, or a nice dress for his wife, and a wedge of gold. God hates the sin of covetousness; he has punished it in all ages; and when that sin was found out and put away, they moved on to Ai. There was no trouble then, and the men of Ai soon fell; they could not stand before the Lord.

Then we are told Joshua comes to Mount Ebal and the law of God is read to them (see Joshua 8: 31st to 35th verses). Thank God for such a man as Joshua. That is the kind of men we want now-a-days. Men have been cutting and slashing at the Bible, so that they haven't got anything left now. But Joshua just gave them the whole Word; it was all read. And now he is ready to move on. The law had been read; they had worshiped their God; and, undoubtedly, the nations all through that land heard of that, solemn assembly on those two mountain sides, and that the law of God had been read. Now they are ready to move on again; and some startling news reaches Joshua that there is a confederacy formed, and instead of meeting one king at a time he is to meet five of the leading kings of the country; and they were coming from the mountains and from the valleys with their giants, to overwhelm him. I see the old warrior; he don't tremble at all; he had got the Word of God: "Joshua, be of good courage, no man shall be able to stand up before thee all the days of thy life;" and he routed the armies of the kings; and the day was not quite long enough, so he commanded the sun and moon to stand still and had two days in one, and there was none of them left together. He found those five kings hid away in a cave. He overcame thirty-one kings and killed them. He overcame them by faith.

Some men say, "What right had he to go over and take that land?" The Word of God tells us. (See Deuteronomy 9, 4th to 6th verses.) God didn't want to have them go in on account of their selfrighteousness; God hates that, but it was on account of the wickedness of the inhabitants. Joshua then divides up the land among them, taking the poorest part for himself, so that he might be near the ark, near Shiloh. There comes out another trait of his character.

There he died. He lived to the ripe age of 110; and all these years not one solitary man was able to stand before him.

And see the contrast between his dying testimony and that of Jacob down in Egypt! "Few and evil have been my days"-had a pretty stormy voyage. There is a man that walked by sight. Now look, and see this old warrior going to rest. He is not going to die like an infidel, or an atheist. He knows in whom he believes, and he sent for all Israel; and they gathered at Shiloh, to hear the old prophet and patriarch and that mighty man of God speak. What does he say? What is his dying testimony? How we linger about to catch what our dying friends say; how anxious we are to catch their last words and utterances. Now what are the last words of this man, who has tried God and proved him, and who knew God? This is it: "Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth; and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed." God has kept his word, fulfilled his promise, made his word good: "not one thing hath failed." What a glorious dying testimony! What a beautiful sunset! Look at the old warrior sinking away, like the sun going down on a summer evening full of beauty. There the old man is dying, and is leaving that testimony behind him. It has lived all these years. How we like to go back to it! Moses laid away in the mountains by God; Aaron also buried in the mountains by God; and Miriam, the sister of Aaron, had died in a foreign land; and now in sight of the celestial city which Abraham caught sight of, this is Joshua's dying testimony: And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth; and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you."

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My friends, let us take God at his word; let us try his word and prove him, and we will find that God is true. Ah, these men that are trying to destroy our confidence in the Word of God, by telling us that God does not keep his word, are deceiving us. It is not true. Any man that has tried these promises has found them to be "yea and nay;" he has found them to be true. Let us pray to the God of Joshua.

SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD.

"Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" Amos 8: 3.

Our subject to-day is, "Walking with God, or Separating from the World." Of course, this address is to those that have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ; for no man has a desire to walk with God until he is saved. For six thousand years, since Adam fell out of communion with God, God has been trying to win back the sons and daughters of Adam into communion with himself. When Adam was innocent of sin, he could walk with God; but the moment he fell, he ran away and hid himself and was out of communion with God. When men are going away from God they do not desire to walk with him; but after we have become his children, the sweetest lesson we can learn is how to walk with him in constant fellowship, how to be in communion with him all the while. God came down and visited man. He visited Abraham, and Jacob, and Moses; but he did not walk with man until after the flood. Then he took the children of Israel and walked with them, and would have walked with them forever as a nation; but they said that they wanted a king like the other nations around them, and God granted their request.

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Now if nations will not walk with God, it is the privilege of individuals to do so; and each one of us in this house can be brought into communion with God, and walk' with him the rest of our days, if we will. It says in Peter, 2d chapter, at the 20th verse: For what glory is it if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow in his steps."

I am told by men that have been in the Indian country that very often you will find a trail over a mountain, and you will find only one footprint, as if but one man had trod that path; and I am told that the chief goes on and the tribe follow, and they put their feet into his footprints. Our chief has gone on before us, and left us an example. We are to follow in his footsteps; and we would have continual blessing if we did not go out of the path; and the trouble is that most of us think our way is better than his, and are not willing to follow in his footsteps. It says in the 26th chapter of Leviticus, 2d and3d and 4th verses: "Ye shall keep my Sabbaths and reve

rence my sanctuary; I am the Lord. If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them: Then I wil' give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit."

Now if you will read the history of that nation, you will find that as long as they kept the law they prospered. God gave them the rain in season, and God caused their land to bring forth abundance; but when they turned away from him and would not reverence his law, then they brought calamity upon themselves, and they were taken into bondage and servitude. Nebuchadnezzar took them into bondage and kept them for seventy years, because they would not reverence the law. Now it says in that same chapter, 12th verse: "And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people." He said, I will come down among you, and you shall be my people and I shall be your God. And what nation had a God like that? What nation was blessed like that nation, when God was walking with them? The shout of the King was heard in the time of battle. God sent legions of angels to help them if they put their trust in him. But then he warns them in the 27th verse: "And if ye will not for all this harken unto me, but walk contrary unto me, then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins."

What causes so much misery now in the city of Boston? It is because men are walking contrary to God. There is no peace for the wicked. You may try to find it, but you cannot away from God. If men will just walk in God's law, reverence God's sanctuary, and obey God, they will have peace; they will be blessed as in olden time. God has not changed; he is the same now as he always was. But men are walking contrary to God, and that is the trouble. Now we find here, that in the days of Joshua no man was able to stand before him all the days of his life, because he studied the Word of God and meditated upon it day and night; he observed the whole law, not merely a part of it, and the result was that he was prosperIn the 22d chapter, we find there he gave orders to those he left to take his place after he was gone: "But take diligent hed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, charged you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. So Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went into their tents."

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We are told that they did not depart from the Lord in the days of Joshua and the Judges. He had such influence over those Judges that he kept the children of Israel from departing from the Lord. But a few hundred years after, they turned away. It is only rain that you hear, my friends; let us pray that the rain of God's blessing

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