Well, I know you're tired. So I'll try not to keep you too
long. I thank God for that guided missile there. Sometimes us preachers, we draw
a bow at a venture and shoot the arrow out there and we don't
know where it's going. But the Lord turned it into a
guided missile. Go right for the heart. And I appreciate that
message, I do. And I appreciate all of y'all
for inviting us, treating us so well. Don't deserve that kind of treatment. I remember old JD Bugger, every
time I'd call him, I'd say, brother, how you doing? He'd say better
than I deserve. How we're being treated is better
than we deserve. Thank you so much. Joshua chapter
15. Joshua chapter 15. I thought
I was going to leave my coat on. That light is hot. Read verses 13 through 17. And unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh,
he gave a part of the children of Judah according to the commandment
of the Lord to Joshua, even the city of Arba, the father Anak,
which city is Hebron. And Caleb drove thence three
sons of Anak, Shishai, Ahimon, and Talmai, the children of Anak. And he went up thence to the
inhabitants of Debor, and the name of Debor was Kergessephir,
and also was once named Kergesanna. And Caleb said, He that smiteth
Kergessephir, and taketh it to him, will I give Aksah, my daughter,
to wife. And Athenael, the son of Kenaz,
the brother of Caleb, took it, and he gave him Aksah, his daughter,
to wife. The first 12 verses of this chapter
record the establishment of the borders and the lines of allotment
of the portion of the promised land given to the tribe of Judah
for an inheritance. And then we just read in verses
13 through 17, we have the record of Caleb conquering the sons
of Anak and possessing Hebron as God promised him. We also
have the account of Caleb's promise of his daughter, Aksah, her hand
in marriage to any man who would go up and battle the city of
Dabir. And Othniel takes up the challenge
and wins the handle or the hand of Aksah. I want us to consider these things
tonight for just a little bit as they declare the gospel of
God's grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. And before we look at
the compact between Caleb and Othniel, it is important to note
that this portion of scripture is the first account that God
is faithful to his promise and that Caleb was a man whom God
gave faith to trust his word. The sons of Anak are mentioned
here. Those were the giants that the Israelites were so afraid
of that made them refuse to go into the promised land and believe
the lies of the ten spies and not believe Caleb and Joshua
and in fact want to stone Joshua to death because he says we can
take these guys. They said we can. Those giants were so feared by
all the Israel save for Joshua and Caleb These terrible giants
were the excuse for unbelief that eventuated in the tribes
of Israel being turned back into the wilderness for 40 years.
These men brought such fear to Israel that when Israel looked
upon them, they felt themselves as grasshoppers. That's their
own description, mere bugs in their sight. The sons of Anak
were fierce and terrible, but Caleb knew that he would have
them over for lunch and they'd be the main course. So in matter-of-fact
language, Cambridge says to drive thence the sons of Anak. That octogenarian, he was 80
years old at the time, God had kept him strong for this moment,
and his faithful God would give these giants into his hands,
said Hebron, Kerjath, Arbra. Well, actually, that had always
belonged to Caleb. Enoch and his sons were but temporary
inhabitants, ordained and doomed caretakers of Caleb's land until
he got there. They were to build the cities
and erect the houses, dig the wells, plant the gardens for
Caleb and his family to later possess. You ever wondered how
you got the house you lived in? Our Lord said over in Deuteronomy
chapter 6, Verse 10, it says, It shall be
when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which
he sweared to his fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,
to give thee great and goodly cities, to give thee great and
goodly cities, which thou buildest not, and houses full of good
things, which thou fillest not, and wells digged, which thou
diggest not, and vineyards and olive trees which thou plantest
not, when thou shalt have eaten full." And then he goes on to
say, when you get all of this, you'll immediately turn to idolatry.
That's what he said. This defeat of Anak is preceded by the quintessential
understanding of what unbelief is. If you read Numbers 14, you'll
find that the children feared Anaxo that they would not go
into the promised land, and God turned them back into wilderness
for 40 years. And then it was time to go again.
And God said, I'm going to bury all of you folks in the wilderness
who wouldn't go in the first time. It was over 20 years of
age. They didn't believe God and wouldn't take the land. But
when God said, you can't go in, You know what they said? We're
going in. That's unbelief. Unbelief never
becomes belief. The unbelief we were born with,
we still have. Thank God He has given us faith
to believe His grace. To believe the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ. But we're still unbelievers in the flesh.
And the things that our brothers said to us this week concerning
the will of God, the power of God, The absolute sovereignty
of God and all things, our flesh still rebels against that. There's
a part of us that just don't like that. The old man's not
happy with that. Thank God our spirit rejoices
in it. Caleb possessed Hebron. Now sets his sights on a place
called Deborah. And Deborah was formerly known by two other names,
Kirjassipha and Kirjassena or Sana. And these names mean the
city of books. the city of books or the city
of letters and were probably the seat of records in Canaan
at the time. Many believe that the city was
ancient and had a great library as the sons of Ishmael were great
record keepers and advanced in science and math and were great
enthusiasts for knowledge and keeping records. They loved wisdom. I recently
saw their dig in ancient Phoenicia a thousand years before the time
of the Lord Jesus Christ. There was discovered a jar made
out of clay. Had kind of a wax stopper in
the jar and two prongs sticking out of the top and everybody
was looking at it. It was dated many, many centuries
ago. Wondering what it was. The archaeologists
were dumbfounded as to what it was and one clever fellow looked
at it took his knife out, his Swiss Army knife, and popped
out that wax seal, poured vinegar in it, put back in the wax seal,
and the little jar produced four to five volts of electricity
a thousand years before Christ. Smart people, these Ishmaelites. This city was an important city,
Debir. or Kordiasifer, Kordiasan, a
city that contained a collective mind of natural wisdom, a library
of the world's wisdom. And Caleb was the leader of his
family and the chief of the tribe, and the offer of his daughter
was no small thing. To have her for a wife was to
be immediately advanced in rank and stature, and this was not
lost on Othniel. He knew that he would make himself
a name and receive honor as well as a bride. So, the record is
that he sacked Debar and took his bride. Aqsa was the daughter
of Caleb, born of his union with a concubine. Some controversy
has been raised over this marriage because Othniel, it seems to
be called the brother of Galab, but actually it says that Caleb
is the brother of Kenaz, who is Othniel's father, so he married
his first cousin. which was not prohibited by the
Lord. As we consider this and what follows, we need to once
again remind ourselves that all these Old Testament stories and
incidents in one form or another picture Christ and His work on
Calvary's tree and the salvation of His elect. And what is before
us? Well, we have a city to be conquered. We have a bride given by the
Father. We have a conqueror who volunteers
to the task for the sake of having this bride. We have a contingent
which states that in order to have the bride, the conqueror
must be successful in his conquest. And we have success and the bride
and the conqueror are wed. That sounds a whole lot like
the gospel to me. First, we have a city to be conquered
and deposed of its king. The city contains the wealth
of human wisdom and knowledge. The name of the city is important
because it also signifies worldly wisdom. But one of the names,
Kyrgyzstan, contains the word sana. And that word is significant
both to the Phoenicians and the Arabs because it means law, doctrine,
and manner of life. To Islam, it is the secondary
law of the Koran, the sana is. And Islam is typical of the works
for righteousness religion, and is parodied by what most would
call legalist free will fundamentalism of our day. Religion looks at the old covenant
as law, doctrine, and manner of life, and sees it as an adjunct
to grace. In the mind of the flesh, it
is city that our Lord came to conquer, this worldly wisdom
This place where men believe that the law justifies them and
gives them the manner in life in which they should live. Natural
wisdom can't get you anywhere with God. And that's according
to God's plan. It's according to God's will.
Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Brother Ron read this the other
night. 1 Corinthians 1, beginning with verse 17, For Christ sent
me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of
words, that is, human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ should
be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness, but unto them which are saved
it is the power of God. For it is written, this is what
God says, and He said it in Isaiah, I will destroy the wisdom of
the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is
the debater or disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish
the wisdom of the world? Now listen to this. For after
that in the wisdom of God, so this is how God ordained it to
be, this is God's will. After that in the wisdom of God,
He ordained that the world by its wisdom could not know Him. That's the ordination. So no
matter how much you study, no matter how many degrees you have,
no matter how smart you are, and I'm glad for smart people.
I'm glad there's some smart people surrounding Phyllis over there
that know how to do things like run a line up somebody's leg
and put a little brass doohickey in their heart that makes the
blood flow better. I'm glad for that sort of thing.
When I was a boy, if you had a heart attack, You know, they
just put you in bed and waited for it to happen. That's about
what it was, but not anymore. They do wonders. I'm glad for
earthly wisdom, but that wisdom is great and as wondrous as it
is, and we who've lived for a little while know we've seen some things
that are amazing, utterly amazing. When I was a boy, they gave me
a sugar cube with a little drop of pink stuff on it, and I never
got polio because they gave me that stuff. It's all smallpox
here, it's all polio. Things like that, whooping cough,
those things come to an end when I was a boy and I was utterly
amazed. That's great wisdom. You know
what it's worth? In the matter of the salvation
of your soul, in the matter of eternal things? Nothing. God has fixed it so it's not.
God has fixed it, but he's also fixed it that men by their wisdom
think they can know God. But he's fixed it that never
can. He's made foolish the wisdom of this world. For after the
wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Foolishness
of preaching. What does that mean? The men
who stand up here and do this. Now you might honor their office
and respect what they do. But I'm telling you, God chooses
men to preach the gospel so when it's all said and done no man
can look at those men and say, he had anything to do with my
salvation. It's just foolish to think so. Through the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require
a sign and the Greeks seek after a sign, but we preach Christ
crucified under the Jews a stumbling block and under the Greeks wisdom. How is the wisdom of this world
destroyed? Just like Othniel went in there,
it's destroyed by the one who is the Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ. God destroyed the wisdom of this
world and made Christ to be the wisdom of his people. He made
unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
In this passage, we have a conqueror. His name is Othniel, which means
the Lion of God. and he's of the tribe of Judah.
Now, you can put two and two together, can't you? You can
do the math on that. We need not press our imagination
into service here. There is one who is the lion
of the tribe of Judah, and he hath prevailed according to the
word of God. He's a young lion going to the prey. He stooped
down, he shall be lifted up. He's an old lion, and who shall
rouse him up, said his daddy as he predicted his future in
Genesis chapter 49. He is a lion of the tribe of
Judah, and he hath prevailed to open the book and loose the
seals thereof. And our only thing we can say
about such a wondrous thing is worthy is the Lamb that was slain,
that has redeemed us by His blood out of every kindred, nation,
tongue, and people, and made us kings and priests unto our God.
We have a conqueror. We have a conqueror. His name
is Othniel. His name is Jesus Christ. And he besieged the city
of Mansoul. And being stronger than the king
who temporarily reigned there, he bound the strong man and spoiled
his house and cast him down. From the cross he cried in a
loud voice, it is finished. And it was. It was finished. What was finished?
My redemption was finished. My salvation was finished. All
that was left was me to hear about it, and I hadn't been born
yet. That was 20 centuries later,
after I'd been preaching for a while, didn't know God from
a goose. One night, went to a little place, Victory Chapel, wasn't
it? W.R. Cruz was preaching that
night. Moose Parks was there, Jim and I were there. And the gospel came home that
night. Driving back, I said, Jim, the Lord saved me tonight. Showed
me what I am. Showed me who He is. I'm going
to have to be baptized again. Make about the third time, I
guess. That night, Booth Sparks, the
Lord broke him too. Same night. Conquered. Conquered. Our Lord said it is
finished. And it was. The earth shook and
the rocks split in twain and the veil of the temple was rent
from top to bottom. It is finished. He said the same thing, the same
word is used in Hebrews chapter 10 when he said he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified by the witch will they are sanctified
the will of God. Perfected forever. We have a
father here, betrothing a daughter to him who is able to conquer
the city. And we have the conqueror taking
on this battle for the possession of the bride. This is a faithful
saying, worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into this
world to save sinners of who I am chief. I pray not for the
world, I pray for them that the father has given me. The father
has given me. Who is she? She's the daughter
of Zion. The daughter of Zion, the elect,
those given to Christ before the world began. All that the
Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me
I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven,
not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
And this is my Father's will, which has sent me. Of all he
has given me, I shall lose nothing, but raise it up again in the
last day. In the last day. gave his life
for the church. I laid down my life for the sheep. He can have this bride only if
he wins the battle. Now we have religion in this
day that says he didn't really win the battle, he gave it a
good shot. He made victory possible, but he didn't win the battle.
That ain't gonna get the bride. You get the bride if you win
the battle. The title of this message is, if you win, you can
have her. We have a contingent here. That's
important. If the city is not conquered,
then the conqueror is not a conqueror. And he cannot possess his bride. But over in Judges chapter 3,
it says this of Othniel. Judges
chapter 3 verse 90 says, When the children
of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer
to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel,
the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. A deliverer, raised
him up, raised up by God. Christ cannot fail. He has not
failed. He will not fail. Our Lord came
to this world to purchase his bride with his own blood and
he purchased her. He slew the city of wisdom. He slew the wisdom of men. He
bound up Satan and he took his spoils. And now he comes forth
as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber rejoicing as a strong
man to run a race. That's why he came, you see.
That's why they named him what they named him. One of the most
powerful verses in all the scriptures, Matthew 121. Thou shalt call
his name Jesus. The Lion of the tribe of Judah,
Jesus, the Savior, for he shall save his people from their sins. From their sins. Over in Ephesians
chapter 1, we read these words, and this has always been an astounding
passage of Scripture to me. There are some Scriptures just
sent out and I just sit there and wonder about them when I
read them. That's the most amazing thing. In Ephesians chapter 1
and verse 20 it says, Which wrought in Christ, when He raised Him
from the dead, and set Him in His own right hand in heavenly
places, far above principality, and power, and might, and dominion,
and every name that is named. not only in this world, but also
in the world to come, and hath put all things under his feet,
and gave him to be the head over all things which is the church,
which is his body, and look at the next phrase, which is his
body, the fullness of him. He ain't no savior unless he's
saved. He's not a redeemer if he has
not redeemed. Those are titles. Those are not
job applications. Those are titles. Who is his
bride? It's what fills him up. The fullness
of him and he fills all. You want a message about particular
redemption? You got it right here. This is
good enough. This will do. God has saved us
and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us
in Jesus Christ before the world began. This is the story of God's
sovereign grace. This simple little thing here,
this compact between Caleb and Othniel and Aksah. It's a story. It's an old story.
It's the old, old story that we've heard over and over again
in this time we've had together. And it's a story of the absolute
success of the line of the tribe of Judah. Conquering the law,
conquering doctrine, conquering the manner of life of the world.
And making his elect, his bride. And taking his bride to realms
of glory to sit in heavenly places with him. Him, the conquering
hero. Our savior, Jesus Christ the
Lord, our sovereign substitute. Our sweet and blessed sacrifice
unto God, the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a father who gives a
daughter. We have a savior who wins her hand because he conquers. This is our God and we praise
his name. Thank you all. Now you can go
home and sit on something comfortable. God bless you.