All right, let's ask God's blessing.
Our Father bless us as we look at this portion of scripture.
May we see Christ glorified in it. In Christ's name we pray,
amen. Now this particular scripture,
which is in verses 7 and 8, let's read it. And the Lord said to
Joshua, today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all
Israel, so that they may know that I am with you as I was with
Moses. Tell the priests who carry the
Ark of the Covenant, when you reach the edge of the Jordan's
waters, go and stand in the river." this story or these words of
the Lord to Joshua, saying that he was going to magnify or exalt
Joshua in the place of Moses, it's specific in the manner in
which it was done. Now, Moses had already been dead
for a little while. and yet God had not specifically
said, I am magnifying you in the eyes of the people. He did
promise to be with Joshua just as he had been with Moses, but
he had not mentioned yet specifically that he was going to exalt Joshua. Now I say it is specific to the
timing and the manner in which this was done because it happens
right as they are crossing the Jordan River. The method by which
God will begin, now remember this is begin. There's more to
the exaltation of Joshua in the eyes of the people than what
will happen that day, but it begins with what happens on the
day they cross the Jordan. And when you see what happens,
or when you know what happened, that is, that the priests bury
in the ark, and the ark being the symbol of God's throne and
God's mercy in Christ, because the Bible says that Jehovah was
enthroned between the cherubim, meaning between the cherubim
that were on the ark, and on the ark was that mercy seat whereon
was poured the blood of atonement. So what you have there in that
ark Whatever other symbolism there may be in that ark, certainly
the symbolism of sovereign grace. A king enthroned and mercy obtained
through a suitable sacrifice. Sovereign grace. It's symbolized, or it symbolizes
those things, and when the priests step into the river, the water
stops flowing. and they walk out and then they
stand still. And that is a picture, indeed,
of Christ as he is exalted in the eyes of God's people. For
the things pictured by the crossing of the Jordan with the Ark of
the Covenant there on the shoulders of the priests and Levites They,
that all signifies Jesus Christ's death and the declaration of
that death. Now, it begins with a very specific
point of reference. This day, or today, today I will
begin to exalt you. What happens on the day that
they cross the Jordan is unlike any other day they have experienced. You know, when the Jews came
out of Israel, there was no priesthood. There was no Ark of the Covenant
as such. Now the Lord went before them,
and with a mighty hand, an outstretched arm, that's the way the scriptures
describe it, He delivered them. Simply by an act of power, He
redeemed them from their slavery, and by His power, He opened up
the Red Sea ahead of them. Now when He opened up the Red
Sea, It says that the water walled
up on both sides of it, and then they walked across on dry ground.
Of course, they did this under Moses' authority. They did this
as Moses stretched out his staff across the water, and they went
out. Well, now it's 38 years later,
and they're about to obtain the promise. Remember, the promise
can never be obtained by law. That is, by means of law. That's
why Moses must die in the wilderness. Those who are under the jurisdiction
of the law, those who were being guided in their shall we speak, say, their quest
for the blessings of God, the promises of God. If they're being
guided by the law, what are they doing? They're wandering in a
wilderness. And people stay in the wilderness
till by faith they cross the Jordan with Christ, so to speak,
under the ministry the sovereign grace of God revealed in Christ
and him crucified. But now Moses, his authority
has been set aside because he's dead. And now it's been transferred
to Joshua, but not just transferred to Joshua as shall we call it
a sovereign decree, though there was a sovereign decree of it.
But what I mean, it's not merely God saying, okay, he's the king
now, or he's in charge now. Joshua came to his authority
over the people of God by a specific method, and it was through the
Jordan. His exaltation before them, came
by a specific path, and it began through the Jordan. Now, as Christ
came into this world, he followed the path that was pictured by
Joshua at this time. So in this story, verses seven
and eight, or this portion of the story, we have an illustration
of Christ, God beginning to exalt him in the eyes of his people.
So this is something new, just as it was a new thing when they
went through the Jordan, which was moving water, whereas going
through the sea, that's still water. When they went through
the sea, water on both sides. Through the Jordan, water on
one side. the primary thing is they are
crossing from a place, a wilderness of wandering, a wilderness, and
the reason they were there was because of unbelief, but now
in faith they're going to follow Joshua through that Jordan, and
this marks the beginning of the Lord's earthly ministry. This
is the beginning of his manifestation, and magnification before the
people of God, and it will culminate, or certainly have a remarkable
expression at the cross of Calvary, where God glorified His Son and
will glorify Him again. In fact, we may say this. Now,
in the book of Revelation, and in chapter five, where Christ
is revealed. And it is said that John was
weeping because there were none found who could approach God
on the throne and take from his hand the scroll, which was written on the front
and the back, the full purpose of God. in the salvation of his
people. Nobody had the authority to take
that from him, to loose the seals on it, to bring to pass his sovereign
decree for the history of the world, and then through that,
open up that scroll and bring to pass the salvation of God's
people. Nobody could do that. But it says an elder came to
John and said, do not weep. for the lion of the tribe of
Judah has prevailed and he is worthy to take the scroll and
loosen the seals of it. Now this speaks of Christ as
he prevailed in his sacrifice and was raised from the dead
and was seated at the right hand of God. But notice then after
hearing about the lion of the tribe of Judah that prevailed.
And you know, that would appeal to us. We like the idea of a
lion-like savior that prevails. Yet John says, but I turned to
see. What did he see? A lamb looking
as if it had been slain, sacrificed. The lion-ness of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the lamb-ness of the Lord Jesus Christ are one and
the same thing. To the world, he looked as a
lamb that was slain and therefore of no significance, of no power,
and of no ability. But when we are given faith to
understand what the slain lamb accomplished. We see him, we
perceive him as a lion who prevails. So our Lord being magnified in
the eyes of the people, it began, began with his earthly ministry
and it will continue, in my opinion, forever. his people behold him,
as Isaiah described him, high and lifted up and seated on a
throne. The interesting thing is when
we see Christ exalted, whether we talk about when we first saw
it or all the times the Lord God brought the gospel to our
mind and Christ was exalted in our mind again, or whether it
is when we see Christ return, if we're here for that, or when
we are in His presence and see Him high and lofty and seated
on a throne, it always has reference to the cross. It will always be grounded in
His death. This magnification of Joshua,
the picture of Christ, it was not to the world in general. It is in the sight of all Israel. Now the world has respect for
a Jesus of their own imagination. They have respect For the Jesus
who's trying to save everybody, for the Jesus who died and was
rose again, and if they'll cooperate with him, he can take them to
heaven. They'll respect that Jesus. But the Jesus who's high
and lifted up and seated upon a throne, they have no interest
in him. Christ is not revealed to all
men for who He truly is. He is revealed to those whom He is pleased to reveal
Himself. So often when our Lord, even as He carried out His earthly
ministry, He would have a message in general for the people, but
then He would take His disciples aside. and explain things to
them in a way He did not explain them to others. And indeed, the
glory of Christ is everywhere. It's there. I can't remember the first part
of this psalm, but it says, the whole earth is full of His glory. Understand this, the only revelation
of God in this reality is the eternal word who, when he became
flesh, was our Lord Jesus Christ. So if the earth is filled with
God's glory, whose glory is that? It's the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The world's full of it. The light is there. People just
don't see it. The Jews don't see it because
they thought that their Messiah was going to come and exalt them. That is, drive out their oppressors,
make their country the established
place of God's presence, and from there rule the world, and
thereby exalt the Jewish nation. They didn't realize that He came
not to just ride in with his power and eliminate the non-elect,
so to speak, or all the enemies of God's people. He came to do
his Father's will, to accomplish what could not be done by any
other means than the sacrifice of a perfect person. You know, there are enemies to
God's people in this world, but do you know what the biggest
enemy to God's people is? God. Now He is also, shall we say,
their best friend. How is He an enemy to them? He
is a just God. And God said, I will by no means
clear the guilty. We're guilty, aren't we? Apart
from Christ, we're as guilty as anybody else that's ever walked
the face of the earth. And that makes God our enemy.
And of all the enemies you may have, you don't want Him for
an enemy. But Jesus, the Messiah, came
to save us from our enemies, and He will in time save us,
deliver us from all our enemies in this world. But Chief, He
came to save us from the greatest enemy to a sinner that there
is, and that is a righteous and holy God. And he did that through
the sacrifice of himself, and through that sacrifice, he satisfied
that righteous and holy God with respect to his people. Now, the
world, they don't even understand the fact that God's their enemy. They get mad at the consideration
of that. When I hear people that claim
not to believe in God, generally speaking, They are not believing
in him because he does not act like they think he should act. I heard one woman, and I guess
it must have been a friend of hers or at least an acquaintance,
but their two children were killed. I believe they were on their
way to school. It was a car accident. Somebody hit them or whatever.
And she could not reconcile that with her idea of God and what
God, quote, should be. God shouldn't be anything. By
that I mean there's nothing we can say, no characteristic we
can bring up and say, God should be that. Why? Because we have
no right to judge God, period. There are no standards for God.
God is the standard. My mother in Bible class, when
she would define sin, she didn't define it in terms of law. She
said, anything that displeases God is sin. So men and women do not love
Jesus as he is. They love their version of him,
but they do not love him. Now God says to Joshua, I will
exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, and here's how we can
understand who God's spiritual Israel is. They see Christ as
exalted. That's how they perceive him. And then, so that they may know
that I am with you as I was with Moses, Now there is a transition here.
He says, I am with you, present, as I was with Moses. Now we who believe that the old
covenant law was a temporary thing established for a certain
set of circumstances to bring about a certain result, and that
believers are not under its jurisdiction, When we say that, of course,
there are many who would object. But here's the thing. Moses and
Joshua cannot be leader at the same time. Moses and Joshua cannot both
lead you into the land of promise. Moses can only lead you where
the law of God will permit you to go. And as sinners, the law
of God will never permit us to go into the land of promise. But Joshua, the picture of our
Lord Jesus Christ, take that. Now, or could accomplish that.
Verse 8 asserts that Christ is the head of the church, for it
says the first word in verse 8 is tell. Tell the priests who
carry the Ark of the Covenant. Now this is interesting. The
priests had been inaugurated or brought about through the
Old Covenant, they had been installed under the ministry of Moses.
But look here. Once Moses had installed them,
they were not under his command. Why? Well, God had made rules
about them, and they were to do what those rules said, no
matter what Moses said. here you have Joshua being told
to command the priests to do something. Such authority was given is given
to Christ and Christ alone as the head of his church. He commands
his priests and all the people of God are priests. Now they're not priests in the
sense that old covenant priests were. We do not offer blood sacrifices. We do not offer sacrifices that
take away sin for two reasons. We don't have anything to offer
that would do that. That's the first one. Secondly,
there's one and only one offering for sin that will actually take
away sin, and it's already been offered, and once it's been offered
and been successful, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin,
says the scripture. Once the sins are gone, there's
no need for that sacrifice. We offer sacrifices of praise
and sacrifices of thanks. and these sacrifices of praise
and thanks, they don't put away our sin, they are sacrifices,
so to speak, to exalt God because of Jesus
Christ, our sin offering. But we are given this charge,
and this is the command of the church, and it's so interesting
to me that The one thing that God commanded the church to do
is the single thing that the Christianity at large seems so
reluctant to do. Go into all the world and declare
the good news, beginning and end of story. Instead,
and we see it so much in our day, and I mean it's always there,
but it just, ever since at least the 80s and the rise of the so-called
moral majority and all this, we see the church, by that I mean the church as
the church, trying to involve itself in politics. Thinking
that if we can get the right leaders in place, we can have
power to bring about some advancement of the Kingdom of God in this
world. What an insult to our Lord that is. He is King of the
Universe. No one gets in His way. Period. Or maybe I should say this. Anybody
who gets in His way gets mowed down. They're mowed down in judgment
or they are picked up, transformed, and put in his army by grace,
one or the other. And so to think that if we could
just get the right guy in the Oval Office, somehow things are
going to go better. I realize there's some certain
temporal things that might go better, but nothing pertaining
to the message and work of the Church of God. Our business,
just like those priests, what did they do? They took that ark
out into the middle of the Jordan. And it says, and they stood there. They didn't, what were they doing? They were testifying of the sovereign
grace of God. That's what they were doing. Right there in the middle of
the Jordan. And they weren't told a dance to do. They weren't
told any words to say. Here's your job, oh priests of
God. New covenant priests, here's
your job. Declare the unsearchable riches of God. Set before all
the people of every kindred, tongue, tribe, and nation. Set
before them the glories of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God. and the eternal king. And if you do that, when the
church does that, it finds God's sheep, they're attracted to it. And in some way or another, it
repels the goats. This is the work of the church.
It's all she's given to do. And when she takes what precious
time and resources she has and gives that over to proclaiming
something else, she is doing the world such a disfavor. Doing the world this disfavor. She is not telling the world
the one thing the world needs to hear, Christ and Him crucified. Well, we'll pick up there next
week.