Would you turn in your Bible
to Hebrews chapter 11, and then hold your place in Hebrews
11, and we're gonna read at verse 30, and turn to Joshua, the book
of Joshua. The sixth book of the Bible,
Joshua chapter five. So hold your place in Hebrews
11 and turn there, and we're gonna read from both in a minute.
Joshua, you might know it or you might not know it, but in
the New Testament, the name Jesus is translated from the Old Testament
word Joshua. So in the New Testament, you'll
read like, for example, in Hebrews chapter four, verse eight, that
Jesus, when it means Joshua. So the names are equivalent.
And that will help us understand what we're about to read here. Let's pray. Father, we pray that
you would be gracious to us today and that you would consider the
greatness of your Son and His heart to do your will to save
your people from their sins, and that we would be found in
Him. that you would favor us with the favor that you show
your people, that we might rejoice with them, that we might rejoice
in your salvation and give you that glory that you deserve alone,
that we would be enthralled with your son as you are, and we would
so find your work in us to give us this faith to commit our all
to him. Thank you for being so good that
you would save us from our sins at such a cost as your only begotten
son. And give us this precious faith
in him, we pray. To all here who hear, in Jesus'
name we pray, amen. By way of introduction, The scripture comes to us as
sinners and we don't realize really how great of sinners we
are. But it comes out in our attitudes
in life, comes out in our words and in our actions. The work
of God by his word tells us about the Lord Jesus Christ. And it
tells us about him so that we would exclusively consider his
work and consider his goodness. We would not consider our own,
but abandon all that we are and flee as those plagued by our
own sin under God's wrath to Christ to find our complete salvation. And when we hear the gospel from
God's word, that's what it does. When God attends the preaching
of His Word so that He makes it real to us in our heart, then
we're so happy. It's truth we never considered
before, truth we now love, truth we can't forget. It's constantly
with us. Our days are filled, the days
of our lives are filled now with a constant dependence upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. But because of our sin, we have
this sinful nature, and our sinful nature is predominantly characterized
by our pride. Pride manifests itself, it is
evident in many ways, but it's What we experience personally,
we also can see best in others. We're best at finding fault with
others. And when we see that in others,
we know that it's just a way, a mirror of ourselves. If we
can find it in someone else, it's because it was already there
in us. And there's several ways in which we build a barrier between
ourselves and God. We think of ourselves as victims,
and God as austere, overly demanding, and hard, and harsh. And we can't
see beyond that, because we think he's like us. So we consider
ourselves victims, and in our pride, we hold stubbornly to
that view of God. And we might think, because he's
sovereign, he can do whatever he wants, but what can I do? I'm just a victim, and he's pushing
me around, and he created me to damn me. Those kinds of evil
thoughts, they're not true. But we have these attitudes because
of our pride, and we hold them because of our stubbornness,
our arrogance. We won't relent, we won't give
up these views. Another view that pride brings
is this attitude that our sin is too great. It's impossible
that God would receive us as sinners. So we hold to our guilt,
we hold to our inability as something we can't overcome and we will
not allow ourselves to enjoy the peace and joy of salvation
that's in Christ alone. In the first case, when we're
victims, we deny the fact that Christ has said, come unto me,
all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
And him that cometh to me, I will then know why is cast out. But
in the second case, we know that in some sense, but we can't believe
that God really would forgive me. And so we hold ourselves
under this guilt because of our pride and our stubbornness, our
inability to let go of our pride. and to receive that our salvation
is done by God in Christ alone, and to receive the full blessing
of that by looking to Christ only. We want to bring some peace
of ourselves or make it dependent somehow on ourselves, and so
we hold back. We hold back a devotion to Christ.
We hold back this peace and joy with him and love for him. We
can't have assurance because we make our assurance dependent
upon ourselves. We're looking for something,
so we can't have it. Something in ourselves, but we
can't have it if we look there. And so the other way our pride
comes out is that we don't think we're really that bad. I'm not
so bad as to need a savior. Look at the world. Everybody
in the world's happy. They're doing whatever they want. They're
getting by. I'm happy too, just ignoring God and acting as if
it's not important. So we're not that bad, therefore
Christ is not that good, and God is certainly not that good,
and we hold in our pride. We want to leave God on the seat
of accusation in our conscience and judge him. We want to be
able to judge God's word by our own intellect, by our own sense
of justice. This is all pride, but it comes
out in these different ways. And another way pride comes out
is that I'm just entitled to do what I want. I can just do
what I darn well please. And so I'm going to go live my
life. And if I want to, I'll take my life. It's mine. And
God's going to do what He wants to do anyway, so I'll just do
what I want to do. So all these things are a complete opposition
to the revealed truth from Scripture. God, in His grace, has revealed
his goodness in the Lord Jesus Christ and he tells us about
our sin. He tells us about our pride. At the base, at the root
of everything in our heart that's sinful is his attitude of our
own sovereign right to hold our opinion in check on God. To unseek God from his place
of rule over us. We refuse to see the grace of
God because we want to maintain some sense of our own righteousness.
I'm not that bad. The people of Sodom said, you
came here to judge us. They needed judging, didn't they?
But they didn't want to admit it. And that's the way we are. If the Lord does not reach down
in sovereign grace and give us Not what we deserve, but what
Christ deserves out of His grace and goodness, out of His mercy
and faithfulness, in an accord with His justice and righteousness
and truth. If He doesn't do that of His
own will, we cannot be saved. Because we are that bad, and
we are that helpless, and Christ really is that good, you see. Now when we look at these verses
here in Hebrews chapter 11, we're going to read in a moment and
go back to study this in the book of Joshua. We're going to
see two kinds of people. We're going to see those who
believe God and those who did not believe God. We're going
to see God stepping in for those who were his people who believed
him and stepping against those who were not his people who did
not believe him. And in all of this, we're gonna
see a great victory and a great destruction. But in all of it,
remember, we are saved not for what God
finds in us, not for what we bring to God, not for a potential
that we fulfill so that God can justify his grace to us. Nothing
could be further from the truth. It's always because of his own
purpose and grace, which were given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began and not according to our works. And on the other
hand, if we receive justice from God, the severity of God, and
He is severe in His justice, if we receive that, it is because
we refused, in stubborn pride, to bow to Christ. All those who
perish in their sins perish because of their own fault. All those
the Lord saves are saved because of God's goodness. He's to be
credited for our salvation. We are to be held accountable
for our own sins. And these are the principles
of scripture. And so when we go into it with these views in
our forefront of our mind, we're going to see more clearly here
the grace of God. And also the warning. We're going
to see his goodness and his severity. And the other thing we're going
to see here is that it has always been God's purpose to magnify
and glorify His Son. If we understand that, then all
of Scripture is interpreted according to that. God is out to glorify
His Son. How do you know what God's will
is? Well, first of all, because it's revealed. Even before God
does it, He reveals what He's going to do. This is his way. From ancient times, he declares
those things will happen in the end of time. And then when we
arrive at the end of time, whatever is done then will be what God
determined before time to do. So whatever God says happens
then and he tells us. His son is exalted to the highest
place of preeminence and glory. Why? Because that's what he purposed
to do. And what else do we see? We see sinners gathered around
His throne, casting their crowns at His feet and praising the
Lamb who saved them by His own blood. and they were the ones
God determined to save. But between the beginning and
the end, we find ourselves in the experience of our own sinful
hearts and our impotence to do anything, and therefore God convinces
us from his word and in the experience of our lives of our helplessness
and utter dependence upon him and his goodness in Christ. So
this drives us, by the attendance of the Spirit of God working
in our hearts, it drives us to an attitude of thankfulness and
praise to God and worship of His goodness in His Son. So in
Hebrews chapter 11, now I want to read these verses here, starting
with verse 30. The book of Hebrews is about
Christ. Chapter 11 is about faith in
Christ. All who believe Christ are His
people. And they have this faith, not
of themselves, but of his pure grace. Hebrews 11, verse 30. By faith the walls of Jericho
fell down after they were compassed about seven days. So there's
the statement. Seems simple, doesn't it? The
walls of Jericho fell down. Why? By faith. By faith the walls
of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days.
And verse 31, by faith the harlot Rahab, who was in that city,
Jericho, perished not, notice the next few words, with them
that believed not. Sometimes we don't see those
things. Rahab believed. Those in Jericho
who perished did not believe. There are two cultures. There's
Christ's people, the kingdom of Christ, and on the other hand,
there are those in the kingdom of Satan. That's the only two
demographics there are in God's view of the world. So we want
to look at these now. Look back at Joshua chapter five. It follows the book of Deuteronomy,
it's just before the book of Judges, Joshua chapter 5. And I want to pick up, we will
look a little more carefully at Rahab next time, but I want
to pick it up in Joshua chapter 5 and verse 13. If you're young, I think, maybe
even if you're old, maybe you're young at heart, when you read
through these things, I love the way the drama captures your
attention. Don't you? And if the drama itself,
the historical drama here captures your attention, it's just a small
light compared to the glory of God in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 13, and it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that
he lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, there stood a man
over against him with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua
went to him and said to him, are you, are thou for us or for
our enemy, our adversaries, our enemies? So you can imagine here
now Joshua was the captain of all the Israelites. Moses had
died and now God had placed on Joshua this role of captain so
that he was going to bring them into the land of Canaan. Moses had been with them all
the way out of Egypt and into the wilderness, and now God has
appointed Joshua to bring them into Canaan. Remember, the name
Joshua is the same as Jesus, and Jesus means Jehovah my salvation,
or Jehovah is salvation. Jehovah salvation. That's what
Jesus means. Remember in Matthew 121, his
name shall be called Jesus, For, here's what it means, he shall
save his people from their sins. Jehovah is my salvation. It says this in Psalm 27 verse
1, the Lord is my salvation. Throughout scripture, Jehovah
has become my salvation, Isaiah chapter 12. The Lord is my salvation. Jehovah, I mean, salvation is
of the Lord, of Jehovah, and it's of Christ. Jesus is Joshua
or Joshua is Jesus. Both are true because Jehovah
is our salvation. Now here, this man, Joshua, appointed
by God to bring Israel into Canaan, he's teaching us that Jesus brings
us into our eternal inheritance, eternal life and glory with him
in the promised land, the land of salvation. Remember, God gave
a promise to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. I'll read it to you.
You don't have to turn there. But he said these words in Genesis
chapter 12. He says, in promise, I will make
of thee a great nation. I will bless thee and make thy
name great. Thou shalt be a blessing, and
I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth
thee. And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. So this is what he promised him.
He had also told him before that he would give him the land of
Canaan. And he speaks these things throughout
this. The land of Canaan is the land
Joshua would bring Israel into. That land was promised to be
a land of rest and a land of plenty. But they would obtain
that land, because of God's promise, by conquest. Who would lead the
conquest? Who would subdue their enemies? Joshua, Jesus. He would save
His people from their sins. Our salvation is a land of plenty. There's an abundance of grace
and blessing. Our salvation is in Christ. Those
who believe Him have entered into rest. We've ceased from
our own works as God, when He created the world, ceased from
His. We rest in Christ's work, our Joshua, our Jesus. He brings
us into salvation, which is an eternal inheritance given to
us by God before time in Christ. Without our works, God gave it
to us in Him, and He would give it to us by Him. He would bring
us in by His mighty conquest over our sin, our enemy, and
Satan, and death, and the grave. He would bring us into that eternal
inheritance, and we would rest. We would stop working because
He did it all. There's nothing left for us to
do. God provides us plenty and abundance and eternal inheritance
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places because of
Christ alone. That's what Canaan typified.
God's promise to Abraham, which was a promise to his son, Christ.
Galatians 3, 16 and 19, it says, the promises were given to Christ.
The one to whom God gave the promises. The promise of land,
of people, of justification, of eternal glory in him. So Joshua
is Jesus and he's coming now to fulfill God's, in type here,
in history, he's going to fulfill the picture that points to Christ
who would bring his people into salvation by his own redemption,
his own redeeming work, the ransom of himself offered to God. So
when it comes to pass, he is on his way in, they've crossed
over Jordan, They came to this river, Jordan, it was overflowing
all of its banks. And God told Joshua, you have
the priests carrying the ark, the Levites carrying the ark,
you stand in the water. As soon as their feet enter the
water, you stand still. And while the ark is there and
they're standing in the water, God pushed back the waters of
Jordan and stopped and they piled up in a heap and all of Israel
over probably two million people, walked across that river into
Canaan. And then the priests carried
the ark up out of the river. And when they left the river,
the whole river of Jordan just flowed down again over its banks.
And the people in Jericho, which is the city they first encountered
on the other side of Jordan, those people heard about what
God did for Israel. They heard that God brought them
out of Egypt, that God opened the Red Sea, that they walked
through the Red Sea on dry land, and then God brought the Red
Sea back on top of their enemies and drowned all of the armies
of Egypt and Egypt's king in the Red Sea. They heard how God
brought them through the wilderness. And when Sihon, the king of the
Amorites, came out against Israel, they heard how God utterly destroyed
Sihon and all of his people. And they heard how God destroyed
Og, the king of Bashan, and all of his people. They were giants.
The bed of the king of Bashan was nine cubits, which is about
13 and 1�2 feet long, and four cubits wide, which is about six
feet wide. That's a king-sized bed, isn't
it? And it was made of iron. These are huge people, and God
destroyed them. He utterly destroyed their enemies. And then the people of Jericho
also saw that the waters of Jordan piled up and these people walked
through. You know what their response
to that, how God had saved Israel? They were terrified. Their hearts melted within them. And Joshua is now on his approach
to Jericho. And it's this time when he's
near Jericho that he lifted up his eyes and he saw this one
standing there with a sword drawn in his hand. Joshua had God's
promises. He was just a man, but he saw
a man there with a sword drawn in his hand. He said, are you
for us or are you for our adversaries? And the answer he got was no,
neither. but as the captain of heaven's
host. That's what it means here. Captain
of the host of the Lord am I now come. You and all of heaven are
the armies of God, I'm your captain. You're on my side. It's not a
matter of whether I'm on your side or the other side. It's
a matter of are you on the Lord's side, remember? Who's on the
Lord's side here? May God put us on Christ's side. All right, we don't say, are
you a Democrat? Are you a Republican? Are you
an Independent? Are you Christ? That's the issue. Politics don't matter. The King
of Heaven matters. Our sin is our enemy. We need
to recognize that. We need a Savior. So Joshua sees
the Lord Jesus Christ, it's called a theophany, God in human flesh,
God in a human form. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
eternal word made flesh. And here he appears before his
incarnation in the world as a man. And so he said in verse 14, nay,
but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come, and Joshua
did what? He fell on his face to the earth,
and he did worship, and he said to him, what saith my Lord to
his servant? Isn't that all that matters?
What do you say, Lord Jesus? You're the captain, what do you
say? Joshua was a believer, obviously, and he shows us by his actions
what we are to do. He understood that he was just
a historical man, and that he only typified Christ. Here, the
Lord Jesus himself stood before him, and he worshipped him. You
worship God only, and he worshipped this man, who was Christ. Verse
15, And the captain of the Lord's host said to Joshua, Loose your
shoe from off your foot, for the place whereupon you stand
is holy, and Joshua did so. It's holy wherever Christ is,
isn't it? Because he's holy. His work is
holy because he is holy. His will is holy. Whatever he
does is right. All of his ways are right and
all of his works are holy. Psalm 145, verse 17. Chapter six, verse one. Now,
Jericho was straightly shut up because of the children of Israel.
In other words, they were enclosed They were under siege because
of Israel. None went out and none came in. And the Lord said to Joshua,
See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof,
and the mighty men of valor. So these people, remember, who
were these people? According to Hebrews chapter
11 and verse 30 and 31, these were they who perished because they believe not. They
had heard. They had heard of God, the God
of Israel. They had heard he was their king and their savior. They didn't believe him. Everyone
believes something about God. Everyone believes something about
how they can be approved by God. These people in Jericho held
to their beliefs. The problem is that their faith
was strong, but it was not in the right thing. They believed
a lot, but they believed a lie. And it's not the strength of
our own personal faith that saves us. We don't have confidence
in our confidence. We don't have faith in our subjective
faith. I live, according to the Apostle
Paul, by the faith of the Son of God. My hope is that God will look
upon Christ. That's what faith does. It empties
itself of all ability and it looks to Christ for everything
in salvation. So these people did believe.
They believed in their walls. They believed in their strength
of their mighty men. And when the fear of God gripped
them and their hearts melted within them, they didn't go to
Joshua. They didn't send a messenger
to Joshua. What can we do to make peace? They weren't interested
in peace, not with these people. They opposed God. They opposed
Joshua, which is to oppose Joshua's anti-type, Christ. So this is
the natural heart of man. God is drawing a picture for
us of what our hearts are by nature. Jericho was a city enclosed
in walls. The people in that city trusted
to their walls. They did not submit themselves
to Joshua. They had no interest in peace.
They held to their idols. And when Achan, one of the people
of Israel, took something from their city, he took a Babylonish
garment. and some gold. And Babylon is
that place where God compares them to this world and its wickedness
and false religion. So Achan found in the city this
worship of man and his religion and his idols. In Psalm 115,
it says about those who make idols, he says, they that make
idols are just like the idols they make. They have ears, but
they don't hear. They have eyes, they don't see.
They have hands, but they don't do anything. They have feet,
they can't walk. They have noses, but they can't
smell. They have all the things that look like a man, but they
can't do anything because they're idols. They were made by men.
They are the works of men's hands. And so he says in Psalm 115,
they that make them are like them. So is everyone that trusts
in them. And an idol is just something
that opposes Christ, because Christ is the one we worship.
He's the one in whom all of our salvation and strength lies,
our righteousness, our wisdom, and everything. But to hold an
idol is to hold something in competition with Christ, to rob
Christ of his glory, to introduce something that would take recognition
in the presence of God, as if something I do could. And I referred
to this, I think, either in the Bible study or last Sunday. I'll
refer to it again in Matthew chapter 7. The people, Jesus
says, this is history about to unfold before our very eyes.
History is going to record that many will appear before Christ.
And you know what they're going to talk about? They don't know
Christ, so they're gonna talk about what they did. And they're
gonna beg, they're going to argue on the behalf of their own works
for entrance into heaven. And Jesus will say, I never knew
you. Depart from me, you that work iniquity. And this tells
us volumes about how God knows us, how Christ knows us. When
we come to know Him and He comes to know us in a saving relationship,
which on His part is from eternity, there's this utter dependence
upon Him to be all of our salvation, to do everything for us, to save
us from our sins, and to be all of our righteousness, the basis
of all of our standing before God, our access, the way we know
God, and all of our blessings and eternal glory. He's everything
to the believer. As a believer, we come to depend
on Him entirely. And the last thing in the world
we would ever do while our heads are all bowed around His throne
in heaven is to stick our hand up and say, I want to mention
one thing that I did here. Now that's the farthest thing
from our mind, because the light of the gospel has entered into
our hearts and penetrated the adamant heart of our pride so
that we lay down our arms and we say, Christ is all. I'm such
a sinner, I cannot save myself. I've offended God, God has taken
away my offense by himself burying it in his Son. What do I have
to say except, glory be to the Lord Jesus Christ. All worship
and praise goes to the Lamb. Those who will stand before him,
as they do in Matthew 7, 23, they don't know him that way,
and he therefore knows them not. I never knew you. You never honored
me. You never claimed your salvation
was only in me. You never praised God for the
mercy that I made abundantly towards you because of my blood,
in the propitiation of my blood. You didn't do those things, so
I never knew you. And you had none of the earmarks
of those who love and trust the Lord Jesus Christ. When you were
offended, you didn't forgive. But when I was offended, the
Lord Jesus says, I forgave all this debt. You had no resemblance
to me. You weren't conformed to my image.
I never knew you, you see. And so here, We see these two
people in Jericho full of people who are unbelievers, idol worshipers,
represented by this Babylonian garment that Achan took out.
They trust their own righteousness. They want to rob Christ of his
glory. They, by insistent pride, try
to hold to their own. And they know God's judgment
is coming. What do they do? They don't submit
to Christ. They don't cry for mercy. You
see, they were destroyed according to the will of God, but it was
their fault. They brought the damnation upon
their own heads. That's what stubborn pride does,
doesn't it? It stands there in the face of
God's sovereignty, and like Job chapter 15, he says, he runs,
the sinful, the wicked man runs upon the thick bosses of God's
buckler. You've seen a bulldog with those
things around their neck, these spikes sticking out. This foolish
man, he runs upon God's thick buckler and he destroys himself. God is sovereign. He's almighty.
He's good. He's holy. and you might not
think in the court of your own conscience that he's good, and
you see his sovereignty and his goodness as against you, why
don't you submit to him and also take the whole counsel of God
that those who come to Christ have salvation in him? and submit
yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ and confess that even though
you're a sinner, in Christ is all my hope. That would be the
humble attitude. That would be the God honoring
attitude, but you won't do that, will you? Because our pride prevents
us from that. And so that's what Jericho was
full of. And it represents us in our carnal, sinful nature.
We were enemies, it says in Colossians 1, enemies in our minds and by
wicked works, yet God has reconciled us. When we were so foolish and
opposed to Him, He brought us to Himself. He removed the barrier
our sins raised to His justice. He removed it in the blood of
His own Son and fulfilled His law in honor of it for us in
the obedience of His Son and reconciled us to Himself. He
gave us the blessings Christ deserved. his spirit, to believe
him, to know his work by the gospel preached to us when we
were headstrong and against him. And so that's what Jericho is
full of, these men. Now, let's read on. He says,
I've given to you, verse two, your hand, Jericho and the king
thereof, and the mighty men of valor. The fact is, this event
was a life and death event, wasn't it? People really were destroyed,
an entire city, except Rahab and her family. That's the amazing
thing here. Even in the account of this greatest
condemnation, there's a family in that city that God said to
destroy that God saved. Now is that hope to you? Can you come to the Lord Jesus
Christ as that woman whose daughter was grievously vexed by a devil
and Jesus said, Nothing to her. And then when she kept pleading
with the disciples and they asked him to send her away, he said,
I'm not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
She said, Lord, help me. And he says, it's not right to
take the children's bread and give it to dogs. True, Lord,
that's true. But the dogs eat the crumbs that
fall from the master's table. Just a crumb of your mercy. And
the Lord Jesus Christ, even though she was not a Jew, even though
she was of Sidon, this city, that was an idolatrous city under
the sentence of judgment from God, the Lord said, oh woman,
great is thy faith. Be it unto you as you believe. You see, because faith reaches
past all of the barriers and sees God's atoning work in Christ,
as the answer and the display of God's goodness and justice.
And so even though this city full of unbelievers perished
because they believed not, would not submit to Joshua and held
tenaciously to their pride and their idolatry and their hearts
and their self-righteousness like we do by nature, yet in
that city God had saved a woman named Rahab who herself was a
harlot. And there was no reason in her
to save her and no power to save her. She had no heritage in Israel.
She was an alien without God and without Christ in the world.
But God brought her near by the blood of his son. And he gave
her faith because of the righteousness of his son. Life comes because
of righteousness. He gave her faith, which is the
evidence of life because of the righteousness of his son. This
is the gospel. And so, The Lord tells Joshua,
I've given you this city, the whole city. In verse three, you
shall compass the city, all you men of war, and go round about
the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.
So once around, once every day for six days. First the men of
war, then the priests, seven priests with seven trumpets,
then the Ark of the Covenant, then the rest of the people.
They were supposed to go around the city one time, one day. Next day, get up, do it again.
The men of war, the priests, seven priests with their seven
trumpets, the Ark of God, the Ark of the Covenant, and all
the rest of Israel going around the city, huge city. Verse four,
and seven priests shall bear before the Ark seven trumpets
of ram's horns, and the seventh day you shall compass the city
seven times. On the seventh day, The entire
company would do this, not once, but seven times. And the priest shall blow with
the trumpets. And it shall come to pass that
when they make a long blast with the ram's horns, and when you
hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people, this will be
the last time, the seventh time around on the seventh day, all
the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city
shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up, every
man straight before him. And Joshua the son of Nun called
the priests and said to them, Take ye up the Ark of the Covenant,
and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before
the Ark of the Covenant. So the priests are in front.
The Ark is behind them. Each priest has a horn, a ram's
horn, and they're blowing it. And he said to the people, pass
on, encompass the city, and let him that is armed pass on before
the Ark of the Lord. OK. What is the Ark of the Lord?
Well, remember it was a wooden box overlaid with gold. And on the lid, there was a lid
to that box called the mercy seat, pure gold. The box held
three things. It held Aaron's rod that budded. It held a pot, a golden pot that
had manna. And it held the two tables of
the covenant, the 10 commandments. And over the ark, I mean on the
lid of the ark, every year, once a year, only the high priest
was to sprinkle the blood of the goat that had been slain
on the lid of that ark. And the two cherubim, who were
attached to the mercy seat, were facing each other, looking down
upon the place on that mercy seat where the blood was sprinkled.
And God promised, I will meet with you above the mercy seat. And so what does it mean? Well,
it's talking about Christ and Him crucified. Aaron's rod budded
because there was an uprising against Aaron in the camp of
Israel. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram tried
to say, we're just as fit to be priests as he is. But God
had chosen Aaron. God had anointed Aaron to be
the high priest. God had not chosen or anointed
them. These men presumptuously thought,
we're fit, we're capable, we have as much ability. They wanted
to thrust themselves into that place. No, Aaron himself wasn't
fit or capable. God made him the high priest. But Aaron, in this case, foreshadowed,
pictured the Lord Jesus Christ. He truly was worthy. God chose
him and anointed him to be our high priest and him alone. So
that Aaron was the only way to God. You had to come by the way
of a high priest and the offering that he made for you. Your sins
had to be confessed by the high priest on that head of the animal
and then that blood of that animal sprinkled on the mercy seat and
that other one on whose head that sins were confessed was
sent out into the wilderness, the scapegoat. But Aaron is the
one who made the atonement. Christ is the one who made our
atonement. The blood that was shed was Christ's blood that
made our atonement, and it was upon His own head that Christ
confessed the sins of His people. He owned them, and He confessed
them as His before God so that He blotted them out before the
Lord. So Aaron's rod that budded represents the life, because
life came out of that stick, the life that comes to us because
of our high priest who offered himself according to God's will.
He was chosen to do that, to make atonement for his people
in the sacrifice of himself. He offered himself to God. That's
Aaron's rod that budded. And the golden pot that had manna,
is that Christ in his divine nature gave himself for our sins
and became the bread of life. God the Father sent him into
the world. He's the bread of life and we eat and drink of
his body and his broken body and his shed blood for us by
faith. Faith brings to God what God has done. Faith comes to
God on the basis entirely of what God has done. In fact, faith
comes to the one. whose body was broken and whose
blood was shed. We come to Christ. And he says,
him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. And that
was right in that context where he says, I am the bread of life.
So the golden pot that had manna is God's provision for his people
of life in Christ and their sustaining faith to live upon him in his
atoning work for them. And then the two tables of the
covenant, the law required obedience from us. The Lord Jesus Christ
fulfilled that. That represents the righteousness
of Christ. So all of these things inside
the ark show us the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ in his
obedience, in his sacrifice, in his work as our high priest
to give us everlasting life by his work on the cross. And the
ark itself, being made of wood and gold, signifies the two natures
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's both God and man. And the
lid of the ark, the mercy seat, where the cherubim look down,
signifies the place where God was reconciled to his people,
or we were reconciled to God through the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and God was propitiated, satisfied. You see? So the priests are carrying the
ark. What are they doing? They're
blowing the trumpet. And the people hear the trumpet.
What is it saying? Jesus Christ and him crucified.
They march around the city walls. The first day, one time. The
second day, one time. The third day, one time. Up until
the sixth day, one time. And then on the seventh day,
The priest carrying the ark, and all the men of war in front
of them, and all the rest of Israel behind are going around
the city, and they do it seven times. And on the seventh time
around, then Joshua tells them, you're gonna blow the trumpet.
And when you, the people, hear them blow that trumpet on the
last time around, shout, for the Lord has given you the city.
And when you shout, God is going to bring the walls down. And
you know what the people did? They believed. They believed
that what God said, that the victory that would come to them
because God was for them, the priest declaring to them Christ
and Him crucified, the trumpets being the preaching of the gospel,
they believed, they heard the trumpets blast. The seventh day,
seventh time around, the work was finished. Up to that time,
it wasn't. The work was finished and the
victory, the full destruction of all of their enemies occurred
when they, taking God's word as the way things are, That's
our victory. The Lord fight for us. So let's
continue reading it. So it says in verse 8, came to
pass when Joshua had spoken to the people that the seven priests
bearing the seven trumpets of the ram's horns passed on before
the Lord and blew with the trumpet and the ark of the covenant the
Lord followed them. Verse 9, And the armed men went before
the priest that blew with the trumpets, and the rear ward came
after the ark, and the priest going on blowing with the trumpets.
Everyone the Lord saves is following the ark. They're hearing the
trumpets. They're believing the testimony
of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. My
salvation is in Him. the one who is both God and man,
who gave himself for my sins. Verse 10, and Joshua had commanded
the people saying, you shall not shout nor make any noise
with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your
mouth until the day I bid you shout, then you shall shout.
You do not get to declare the salvation until Christ says it's
done. You see, until Joshua tells them
to shout, you can't shout, don't say a word. Verse 11, So the
ark of the Lord compassed the city, going about at once. And
they came into the camp and lodged in the camp. And Joshua arose
early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the
Lord. And seven priests, bearing seven trumpets of ram's horns
before the ark of the Lord, went on continually, because this
is all of history, God sending his messengers to declare that
Christ alone is all of our salvation, the victory over our enemies,
sin, Satan, the grave and death, and they blew with the trumpets,
and the armed men went before them, but the rearward came after
the ark of the Lord, all of God's people trusting Christ, the priest
going on and blowing with the trumpets." The declaration of
the gospel. The gospel is the power of God
to salvation. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
10. Look at this one verse here in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. Not one verse, but look at this
place in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. He says here. He says in verse three, though
we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. It's interesting
that he uses the word war there, doesn't he? What were these people
doing? They were going to war. For the
weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty. through God to the pulling down
of strongholds. What was Jericho? A city inside
of walls, strongholds. Do you see the comparison? And
so what do we do? Our weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, but they're mighty. And what do they do? Casting
down imaginations. These are the false thoughts
of men. This is what we think naturally. The truth comes and
it casts down our wrong thinking. Casting down imaginations and
every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge
of God and bringing, notice, into captivity every thought
to the obedience of Christ. That's what the gospel does.
It comes declaring God's work in our salvation against our
sin and Satan and his kingdom, and he tells us, look to Christ.
You see the one there, hanged on the cross by the justice and
the law of God, bearing the sins of his people? Look to him, the
only remedy for your sin-bitten soul. And by the Spirit of God,
we say, That's all I see. And we lay hold of him by faith
and we flee to him. And it casts down all of our
imaginations that were against God, our idolatrous thoughts.
And we now trust Christ only and we rejoice in him. And every
thought against Christ is now brought into the obedience of
Christ's obedience. So back in Joshua, in chapter
6, verse 14. In the second day, they compassed
the city once and returned into the camp. So they did six days,
verse 15. And it came to pass on the seventh
day that they rose early about the dawning of the day and compassed
the city after the same manner seven times. Only on that day
they compassed the city seven times. And it came to pass at
the seventh time When the priest blew with the trumpets, Joshua,
Jesus, said unto the people, shout, for the Lord has given
you the city. And the people probably looked
at the walls and they thought, but it doesn't look like it's
been given to us. These walls are still there.
No, they didn't think that at all. Because when God speaks,
it's already done. And faith believes God who both
raises the dead and calls things which are not yet taken place
as done. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for. It's the actual material reality
of what God has said is done. Faith gives us this view that
God holds. Because He willed it, it is done. As soon as God thinks it, it's
as good as done, even though in our experience we don't see
it. And so they were completely confident that because Joshua
said, shout, the Lord has given you the city, it was done. They're
ours. And by faith, the walls of Jericho
fell down after they were compassed about seven days. It was by faith.
They believed what Joshua said because he spoke from the Lord.
We believe Christ because he speaks from his father. Satan's
kingdom and our sins have been destroyed by him, you see. And
so I want to just take just a couple of minutes here to consider these
things with you as I tried to introduce them in the very beginning
here. There's much that we could say
about this, but I want to talk about the application of this
to you now in these couple of ways here. Faith, we know that
faith is believing God. It means that we believe what
God says that is done before it takes place. Don't we? God has said things, but here's
the interesting thing. In our time in history, Christ
said it is finished because it was done. And so we believe what
Christ has said from the cross that he actually really accomplished. the complete salvation of all
of his people in his death on the cross. And when he rose,
they were justified because he rose. God raised him from the
dead. God accepted what he did, and considering only him, accepted
and approved of them. We're justified by his blood,
Romans 519. By the obedience of one, many
shall be made righteous, Romans 519. Romans 5.9 and 5.19. being justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Romans
3.24. You see, our justification is
because God raised Christ from the dead. He was delivered for
our offenses, so he did die, but he was raised again because
of our justification, Romans 4.25. So faith is believing what
God said concerning his son. And even though we don't see
it with physical eyes, The Word of God enlightens our minds by
the Spirit of God to see this is the way things truly are,
so we believe it. That's what faith is. Faith doesn't
make it happen. Faith believes it has happened,
either because God said it and it's as good as done, or because
it's actually done, and the Lord Jesus Christ declared it to be
done, just like Joshua said, shout! You see. So our faith
is taking Christ at his word that he has accomplished what
he said he did, and therefore he is all of our salvation. When
he said it is finished, the salvation of God's elect was done. So the
question is, do I believe this? He said that he came to save
his people from their sins, so they must be sinners. He said
that he came into the world to save sinners, so he did come
to save sinners. He said that those who do not
work but believe Him who justifies the ungodly are righteous in
Christ. Righteousness. Do I believe Him? Do I? By God's grace, I do. I am called
to believe Him that He obtained the victory over my sin. Just
like Joshua said, the Lord has given you this city. I'm called
to look to Him. I'm called to expect Him to give
me what He only accomplished and what He only possesses and
what He only can give out of only grace, His grace. And I'm called to believe that
He is now in the seat of triumph and glory and power as He said
He is. He has all power in heaven and
earth. I am called to believe that He rules over all things
in heaven and in earth for my eternal salvation, and that He
now makes intercession at the right hand of God in His own
person, who gave Himself for my sins. I am called to believe
those things. I am called to believe that in
Him I am accepted, and because all blessings for sinners are
in Him alone, and trusting Him, I have what He obtained. I am
called to believe Christ. I am called to believe the events
that he accomplished, but I'm really called to believe him
who accomplished them. I'm to believe that God who decreed
salvation in Christ for his elect from the beginning of time, from
the beginning of the world, before the world began, and that he
gave that to him and gave them in covenant to Christ that he
accomplished what he promised by the blood of his own son.
And when he declares it now from heaven, in his word, in the gospel,
that Christ is the ground of all my salvation, I'm to believe
that. What more, the psalm says, what more can he say than to
you he has said? He not only said it, but he did
it. And he sent his messengers to declare it to us. We must now enter into the holiest.
How? By the blood of Jesus. by His
precious blood and do so in full assurance of faith. Not because
we will and purpose and determined to believe, but because God said
it. Not because we find in ourselves
the experience, but because God said Christ is all of the experience
that matters. It's not your subjective experience,
it's the experience of Christ that God accepts. Faith is the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But here's the thing. Sinful
pride in my heart rises up against the absolute truth of our unfailing
God. And our sinful pride says something
like this. If God does what he wants and
saves only whom he will, then there's nothing I can do. Only
we say this as a victim. I'll live my life as I please.
I'll take my life if I please, because God will do whatever
He wants, and I am but a victim in His hands. But this is clearly
an obviously arrogant, stubborn, self-destructive pride, isn't
it? This attitude. There is no truth
or sound reasoning in this. It's only hatred for God and
His plainly revealed truth. We want to take a part of it
because it helps our accusation and hostility against God. We
want to deny the rest of what God has revealed. Why are men so arrogant? Why
are they so impudent as to take only part of what God has said
so they can stubbornly hold to their pride? That's why. And
they can hold their hostility against God in their own destruction. Why not take God's promise of
life in Christ to sinners? That all who come to Christ shall
not be cast out, but have everlasting life in Him. Why not? Why not
take the glorious truth that Christ deserves all glory because
He did it by Himself and God thinks of Him? Why not ask Him
to do what He alone can do and does by His grace without my
will and without my works? Why not ask Him to open my eyes
that I might see His glory and save me from the plague of my
heart? Why not? Why not ask him to give me repentance
so that I can acknowledge the truth of the gospel that saves
sinners? Why not? We know the reason why. Just like those people in that
city of Jericho, we trust in the walls of our own defenses,
but it is the arguments of the gospel that bring those walls
down. Here's why. Since Christ came
to save sinners, why would I exclude myself? Why? Why do I erect a wall, like Jericho
did, about myself that I believe is impenetrable? Why do I argue
that because God is sovereign, I do not need to seek him in
Christ as he told me to do, but claim I'm the victim of his sovereignty
because he's austere and will do what he wants to do, like
the man who took the talent given to him and hid it in the earth?
Yeah, he's austere. He's gonna take what he wants
anyway. I'm just gonna bury it here. He has promised that all
who seek, find. And all who shall call, all who
call shall be saved. And all who thirst, may drink.
And all who believe, shall be saved. Why do I then bury this
truth beneath my pride and hostility against him and limit God by
the limits of my own sinful heart? Why do I do this? Why would I
say in my heart that because I do not believe, because my
case is impossible for me, it is therefore impossible with
God? Why? Because I don't believe God.
I make Him to be, just like myself, a liar. This is playing the victim
card, isn't it? It's taking my side against God
to run upon, like I said in Job 15, the thick bosses of his buckler. To run myself into perdition
because I'm too proud to stoop before my sovereign creator and
my judge to ask him to save me and be my savior. Only pride
will build such walls around ourselves to keep God out and
retain our arguments and stubborn pride to keep ourselves upright
in our own mind against His truth and to hold to our own righteousness.
Don't blame God if you go to hell. Look in the mirror of God's
Word and find that you're guilty and sinful and helpless and that
that is exactly what you need to know yourself to be so that
you will humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God and ask
Him to accept you for Christ's sake alone. and by his grace
save you that you might give him praise and not yourself.
Now I say these things in kind of a corrective way because I'm
speaking to my old man, right? And I know I speak to your old
man too, because we find it stinging. We find the truth stinging our
conscience. When it arrests us, shaking us
by the neck, showing us that you're so stubborn in your opposition,
your hostility against God, that you cannot receive the truth
of his goodness in Christ and bow yourself. You need salvation,
but you need salvation that is Christ alone because you have
excluded yourself from all help unless God helps you in his sovereign
grace for Christ's sake. But if you refuse the sound of
his trumpet, the gospel, your walls will fall down at the command
of Christ on the last day and you will receive the judgment
you challenged him to bring against you. May God grant you and me
this precious faith to come as sinners in need of Christ and
His salvation and find our all in Him and therefore give Him
all the glory. And then there's this other case
where we have sinned. We who trust Christ have sinned.
And we cannot believe that God could accept us or save us unless
we're able to stop sinning. We've been told that, haven't
we, by religion? Well, if you repent, then you'll
be saved. What does that mean? It means
stop sinning. I can't do that, so I can't have any peace with
God. I have to show a record of performance to qualify myself,
to call myself the Lord's people. But here again, our pride is
the barrier. Joseph's brethren, remember,
they sold their brother into slavery. And then their brother. who knew them, and they didn't
know him, he delivered their lives. He forgave them freely. And he told them, don't be angry
with yourselves, you sold me here. It was God who sent me
before you to preserve life. And you know what they thought?
He can't be any better than us. We better tell him, Dad said,
you gotta forgive them. They thought that he still held
resentment against them, and he wept for them. That's us. We can't believe that God is
that good, can we? That he would forgive us who
have done so much against him? And this is our pride. Joseph's
brothers could not believe that he would love them and forgive
them and care for them because they wouldn't do that. They could
not believe Joseph was better than they were. And so the natural
carnal heart of man cannot believe Christ to be so good as he is,
that he would uphold God's holy law and give his justice due
payment in his own love and obedience and suffering without causing
himself at the hands of hateful, proud men in order that he might
save some of them by substituting himself for them in answer of
God in the sacrifice of himself. And so we draw back by nature
until our conscience is not so wounded. We will not delight
in God. We will not allow his peace to
enter our conscience and to flood our conscience and give us joy.
We will not allow ourselves the joy of pardon until the wounds
of our conscience scab over with time. That's just the way we
are, isn't it? And not until we forget the pain
will we then come to God. That is arrogant, self-righteous
pride and unbelief. Then, then when we feel better,
we will allow some relief to ourselves. We will never immediately
confess ourselves to be what we truly are and own that if
God has not counted our sins to Christ and his righteousness
to us in pure sovereign grace, that we have no hope. We're dependent
upon him. He says that he justifies the
ungodly. Will we take comfort in that?
Will we glorify Christ for that? Or will we wait until we feel
better? Will we take his word and believe it, or will we wait?
With this confession, we take up his promise that all who look
to Christ already have everlasting life. He said that. Whoever believes
on me has already passed from death to life. They shall not
come into condemnation. And so our pride does this. Listen
to what our heavenly Joshua said. The Lord Jesus, when he had by
himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the
majesty on high. Shout. Believe him. Your enemies have been conquered.
You're a sinner. You have no strength against
them. The Lord fights for you, and he does it in his son. What
is our part? only our sins. What is his part?
Everything else to save us. Joshua told the people, shout
for the Lord has given you the city. The Lord has given you
Christ, the one who by himself has conquered sin and death in
the grave and Satan in his kingdom. Your lusts, your own lusts, war
against your soul. You are a wretched man. Your
carnal mind is hostile and enmity against God and your body is
dead because of sin. But Christ has said, it's finished. He said, thanks be unto God who
always gives us the victory. He says we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us. Who are we gonna believe? Our
wretchedness, our pride, our stubbornness, our sinfulness,
or the Lord who cannot lie and cannot fail? His own purpose
and grace which were given us in Christ Jesus is now made manifest. by the appearing of our Savior,
Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and has brought life and
immortality to light through the gospel. It's all accomplished
by the blood of Jesus, and the New Testament is fulfilled and
put into force by his precious blood, shed in obedience and
in submission and in sacrifice to satisfaction and the glory
of God. He has justified him, and God
has justified all with him. This is the gospel. In that day,
this is the song that shall be sung in the land of Judah. We
have a strong city. Salvation, God has appointed
for our walls and bulwarks. Our walls are not our salvation.
Christ's salvation is our walls, our defense. And it is by the
gospel that all other walls are brought down. Our own imaginations,
our idolatrous thoughts and pride and stubbornness. So here's the
message. By faith, the walls of Jericho
fell down. God has declared it. Christ has
accomplished it. He sits in glory. It's done. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you
for your word. For the Lord Jesus Christ, our
Savior, we pray that we might be given this grace to see all
of our enemies, which are ourselves, and our sin, and our wretchedness,
and our lust, and our pride, and everything else have been
brought down. by the Lord Jesus Christ, and He alone is to be
exalted in our hearts, and in our confidence, and our hope,
and our love, and all that we are. We pray that He would be
given all glory. We despise any pride of our own,
any attempt on our part to seek glory to ourselves. We pray,
Lord, that we would walk in confidence in life, in boldness in coming
into the presence of God through the blood of Jesus and the full
assurance of faith, because it all depends on Him. And if we
can't come with full assurance, then we are saying in our hearts,
we don't really trust that it depends on Him alone, but it
does. So give us this grace, Lord,
to glorify your Son and help us to forever praise Him and
worship Him. We know, Lord, that He alone
fights for us. We cannot take up the cause ourselves. We have to take His gospel, the
declaration of His accomplishments in our mouth, and declare it
to be the truth of scripture, the truth of heaven, and help
us to believe Him. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.