sanctuary there. And as Joy always
reminds you, when you get a new one, make sure you What do you
call that? Shred the old one. Don't just
throw it away. Shred it so people can't get everybody's address.
Also, Sarah wanted me to make my future daughter-in-law. She
wants to let everybody in our fellowship know they're invited.
She's not sending invitations because she didn't want anybody
to feel obligated to send a gift. But if you can make it to West
Virginia, she'd love to have you for Jimmy and Sarah's wedding.
We'd love to have you there, too. So anyway, October 29. All right, let's open this evening's
service with hymn number seven. Hymn number seven and the gospel
hymns hymnal. Let's all stand together. The head that once was crowned
with thorns is crowned with glory now. A royal diadem adorns the
mighty victor's brow. The highest place that heaven
affords belongs to Him by right, the King of kings and Lord of
lords, and heaven's eternal light. The joy of all who dwell above,
the joy of all below, to whom He manifests His love and grants
His name to know. To them the cross with all its
shame, with all its graces given, their name an everlasting name,
their joy the joy of heaven. Please be seated. We saw that word diadem in Isaiah
28 a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't know what that was for
the longest time. I knew it was some kind of a
crown, but the thing that Charlotte Rose had on her head the last
couple of Sundays I told her, I said, that's a diadem. That's
what that is. And it was reminiscent of the
wreath that the victor would wear in the athletic games. And Christ is our diadem. He's the victor over sin and
over death. Let's open our Bibles to Psalm
46. Psalm 46. God is our refuge. Place of safety. To escape the storm, God is our
refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, will
not we fear? Though the earth be removed,
and though the mountains be carried in the midst of the sea, though
the waters thereof roar and be troubled, and though the mountains
shake with the swelling thereof, see, la, there is a river. The streams whereof shall make
glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the
Most High. Clear as crystal flowing from
the throne of God. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall
help her and that right early. The heathen raged and the kingdoms
were moved and he uttered his voice and the earth melted. The
Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Come, behold the works
of the Lord. What desolations he hath made
in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto
the ends of the earth. He breaketh the bow and cutteth
the spear and sunder. He burneth the chariot in fire.
He causes his people to put down the weapons of their rebellion
and submit to his authority. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen.
I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we're thankful for the promises of your word. We're thankful
for the faith that you've given us to believe the promises. We're thankful for your faithfulness
to keep all your promises and to make them yea and amen in
Christ. Oh, what hope we have of knowing,
Lord, that that river is here in the house of Jacob. Lord,
we pray now that you would send your spirit and enable us to
drink freely from the water of life. Lord, that our thirst would
be quenched and we would be satisfied. We pray that Christ will be lifted
up and that we would find him to be our refuge. our place of safety, our place
of protection. We ask it in His name. Amen. Let's stand together once again,
number 222 for the faith movement. 222. There is a fountain filled with
blood Drawn from Emmanuel's veins And sinners plunged beneath that
flood Lose all their guilty stains Lose all their guilty stains
Lose all their guilty stains. And sinners plunged beneath that
flood Lose all their guilty stains. The dying thief rejoiced to see
that fountain in his day. And there may I, though vile
as he, wash all my sins away. Wash all my sins away, Wash all
my sins away. And there may I, though vile
as he, Wash all my sins away, Dear dying Lamb, thy precious
blood shall never lose its power. Till all the ransomed Church
of God be saved to sin no more. Be safe to sin no more Be safe
to sin no more Till all the ransomed Church of God Be safe to sin
no more E'er since, by faith, I saw the
stream Thy flowing woods supply. Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. and shall be till I die. Redeeming love has been my theme
and shall be till I die. When this poor, lisping, stammering
tongue lies silent in the grave, Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I'll sing thy power to save. I'll sing thy power to save. I'll sing thy power to save. Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I'll sing thy power to save. Please be seated. A sweeter, nobler song. Can't
wait for that day. Open your Bibles with me, please,
to Joshua chapter 20. Joshua chapter 20. The last couple
of weeks I've made references to the cities of refuge. There are many similitudes given
to us in the scriptures to reveal to us the person and work
of Christ. We see it in the Lord Jesus Christ
being that rock that followed the children of Israel through
the wilderness from which the rivers of water flowed and the
Lord speaks of building our house upon a rock and rather than shifting
sands. The Lord Jesus Christ is likened
to a mother hen who protects her chicks from predators. And over and over again, the
Lord is likened to a city which has strong walls whose foundations
are God and whose gates are Christ. And we just read in Psalm 46
how God is our refuge. He's that place of safety which
we can flee when the enemy is pursuing. If you're in trouble,
you're in trouble. There's a place of refuge. Christ
is likened to that. In Numbers chapter 35 and Deuteronomy
chapter 19, the Lord gave to Moses some instructions as to
designating certain cities, once they came into the promised land,
for the Levites. And the Levites, as you know,
did not inherit any of the land. That was the priestly tribe,
and they are a picture of the believer. We don't inherit property
in this world. We look for a city whose builder
and whose foundations are God. And we're not making our home
in this world. They were to have 42 cities. given to them, scattered about
all throughout Israel. And then they were to have six
cities of refuge, three on the east side of the Jordan and three
on the west side of the Jordan. And Joshua chapter 20 tells us
what those cities of refuge are. Let's begin reading in verse
one. This is a picture of Christ, no question about it. The Lord
also spake unto Joshua, saying, Speak to the children of Israel,
saying, Appoint out for you cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto
you by the hand of Moses. Deuteronomy and Numbers, the
Lord told Moses. Now Joshua It is coming in to
the promised land and that's the first thing there to do designate
these cities of refuge That the slayer that killeth any person
unawares and unwittingly may flee thither and they shall be
your refuge from the avenger of blood Now the law was clear. The law said an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth. And so if you killed someone,
then the nearest of kin of the person that you killed had the
legal obligation to take your life in retribution for the life
that you took. And yet the Lord provides for
those who kill someone unwittingly. In other words, this is an accident.
and numbers he actually describes a scenario in which this might
happen where he says if you're out in the woods and you're cutting
wood and the axe head slides off a handle and hits your friend
in the head and kills him, you know, then get to the city of
refuge. This would be what it would be
for. And if a person did it In malice, the first thing they
were to do when they got to the city of refuge is meet with the
elders of the city. And the elders would put together
a council and determine whether or not that killing was accidental
or whether you had malice in your heart. And if there was
any malice, if you did it purposefully, then you could not go to the
City of Refuge. You were turned over to the Avenger
of Blood and you were put to death. This is only for those
who did it accidentally. What's the picture here? What's
the picture? We looked at this Sunday, didn't
we? When the Lord said in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 that they crucified
the Son of Glory and they would not have done it had they known
who He was. Paul said, I was a blasphemer,
I was an injurious man, but I did it in ignorance. I didn't know.
I didn't know who He was. And we can't claim ignorance
anymore, can we? The thing about it is here that
yes, yes, Donald and I were talking about this before the service.
We grieve, as it says in Zechariah chapter 12, over the one whom
we have pierced. We understand that it was our
sin that put the Son of God to death on Calvary's cross. But
we didn't know. You know, here's the thing about
the conscience. Our children have a conscience. Their conscience smites them
when they do something wrong. You don't even have to tell them
right from wrong a whole lot. They know in their conscience.
They know and you know in your heart what's right and what's
wrong, don't you? And when you violate your conscience
and disobey the law, your conscience smites you. There's nothing in the law of
God that commands us to faith. You see, conscience is directed
by the law. And so it's the law that's rearing
its head whenever we violate the law, even our children. But there's nothing in the law
that commands us to believe on God. There's no commandment to
have faith. And so prior to having faith,
we didn't know we didn't have faith. Because there was nothing
in our conscience to convict us that we were unbelievers.
That's why the Lord said, when the Holy Spirit comes, he will
convict the world of sin because they believe not on me. You see,
our conscience will never convict us of unbelief. Because there's
nothing in the law that commands us to believe. The law commands
us to obey. or else. And so, when Paul said,
I did it in ignorance, what he was saying was, I didn't know
that I didn't know. I didn't know I was an unbeliever. Until the Spirit of God convicted
me and showed me that that really is the fountain of all my problems. That's the root cause of all
my sin. It's my unbelief. And I was dependent
upon the Spirit of God to show me that I was an unbeliever.
And now that he has, Now that he has, I'm without excuse. Oh, Lord, keep me. Keep me. Because if I trample underfoot
the blood of Christ and count the covenant of grace a common
thing, now, after I've been shown the truth, I can't flee to the
city of refuge. I won't be having shed innocent
blood as an accident. So this city of refuge is for
believers. They're Levitical cities, and
they're the place where believers can go who have shed innocent
blood, but they didn't know that they didn't know. They didn't
know they were unbelievers. And when he doth, verse four,
flee unto one of these cities, he shall stand at the entering
into the gate of the city, and shall declare his cause in the
ears of the elders of that city, and they shall take him into
the city unto them, and give him a place that he may dwell
among them. Now, if you read the accounts
of this in Numbers and Deuteronomy, there's much more detail given
about the council meeting and questioning him and interrogating
him to make sure there was no malice in his heart. But you
see the spiritual application of this. This is Christ who is
for those who didn't know that they didn't know. They didn't
know they were unbelievers. They didn't know they were. Had
they known, they would not have crucified the Son of God. Verse 5, and if the avenger of
blood, now that's the law. That's the law. The biggest trouble
that you and I have is not our afflictions, It's not our, it's
not our trials and troubles. The biggest problem that you
and I've got to deal with is the law of God. The law has got
to be satisfied. God's a God of justice. He's
not going to allow one jot or tittle of his law to pass away.
That's our, that's our trouble. And Lord, I've got to have that
law fulfilled. How am I going to do it? I'm
going to have to flee to the city of refuge. The law, the
avenger of blood is hot on my heels, but I'm going to get in
that city. And I'm going to cry out to the
elders and declare my cause. What's my cause? I've got the
law pursuing me. I need a place of safety. I need
a place of protection. I need a refuge. I need a covert
in this storm. You remember in Isaiah chapter
28, we've made a covenant with death and with lies, we've made
our refuge. I can't make refuge. I can't
get, I can't get refuge from the, because the law sees through
the lies. The law's not gonna be satisfied
with the lies of free will, with the lies of good works, with
the lies of good intentions. The law's not gonna, the council's
gonna meet. And if my covenant's based on
lies, there's no refuge. But if I declare my cause, and
I say I killed a man, I need a place of safety. I need a protection
from the Avenger of blood Then the council takes me and gives
me a place Gives me a place in the church. Look what he says
And if the Avenger of blood verse 5 pursue after him and Then they
shall not deliver the slayer up to his hand, because he smote
his neighbor unwittingly and hated him not before time. And
he shall dwell in that city until he stand before the congregation
for judgment, and until the death of the high priest that shall
be in those days. So at the death of the high priest,
now the wrath of the law has been, has gone away. The avenger
of blood no longer has a right to pursue me. Now I can leave
the, now I can go back to my family. I can leave this strange
city. Now you, you see the picture
there. It's not that we're, that we're leaving Christ. It's just
that this is the way that the Lord provided. It was the death
of the high priest. The avenger of blood had every
right to execute justice until the death of the high priest. The Lord Jesus Christ, he's our
high priest, isn't he? And in his death, he silenced
the law. The law has no more authority,
no more right. The law has been satisfied. Justice
has been fulfilled. We've got a place of refuge.
We've got a city to which we can flee. Then shall the slayer return
and come into his own city and into his own house and into the
city from whence he fled. And they appointed. Kedesh in Galilee in Mount Naphtali,
and Shechem in Mount Ephraim, and Kejeth Arba, which is Hebron,
in the mountain of Judah. And on the other side of Jordan,
by Jericho, eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness upon
the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead
out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe
of Manasseh. These were the cities appointed
for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourned
among them, that whosoever killeth any person at unawares might
flee thither, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood,
until he stood before the congregation. Now you've got a map in the back
of your Bible probably you can look up each one of these cities
and you'll find that they are equally dispersed from the north
to the south, on the west side and on the east side of the Jordan.
So that wherever you were in Israel, there was a city of refuge
that was close enough for you to get to. There were signs on
the road that pointed to the city of refuge. This was God's
provision for the protector of the manslayer that killed his
friend unwillingly, that the law would not take his life.
Now, Kedesh, Shechem, Hebron, Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan. You can look them up. These names
are very significant. The first one is Kedesh. Translated, it means a holy place. A holy place. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the holy one of Israel. He's the one that the seraphims
hovered over his throne in Isaiah chapter 6 and cried, holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth is filled with
His glory. Oh, the holiness of God. How
are we going to stand in the presence of a holy God? How are
we going to do it? How are you and I as sinners
going to be found accepted in the presence of a holy God? He's holy, undefiled, and separate
from sinners. He's not like us in any way. We're going to be able to stand
in His presence. We're going to have to be found
in Christ, aren't we? We're going to have to be found
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Exodus chapter 3, turn with me
there. This is the first place where
holy is used in the scriptures. Exodus chapter 3 verse 1 now
Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law the priest
of Midian and he led the flock to the backside of the desert
and came to the mountain of God even to Horeb. Now Horeb is another
name for Sinai. And so this, this, this place
where Moses is on the backside of the desert is the mountain
of the law, the same very same place that he's going to bring
the children of Israel back to and receive the tablets of the
law. Here's the Avenger of blood.
Here's the law of God. It's got to be satisfied. And
the angel appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst
of the bush. And he looked and behold, the
bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed. What a
glorious picture of Christ. Here he is. He's burning with
the fiery wrath of God's justice in order to satisfy his holiness
and to fulfill the holiness of God, satisfy the law and justice
of God. And yet he's not consumed by
the fire. God would not allow his holy
one to see corruption. The Lord Jesus Christ was not
consumed by the wrath of God. He quenched the fire of God's
wrath. This is what Kadesh is all about.
You need some help in standing in the presence of a holy God?
Flee to Kadesh. flee to that city of refuge and
find in him the one who satisfied the demands of God's law and
justice. And Moses said, I will now turn
aside and see this great site, why the bush is not burnt. Oh Lord, give us grace to turn
aside and see why the bush is not being burned. Let us set our gaze on such a
miracle and see that the fire of God's wrath is consumed in
the sacrifice of Christ, but he's not. And when the Lord saw that he
turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of
the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, here am I. And God
said, Draw not nigh hither. Don't get any closer, Moses.
Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground. Holy ground. Expose your creatureness,
Moses. You remember the seraphim that
were hovering over the throne of God in Isaiah chapter six,
they had six wings. With two of the wings, what'd
they do? They covered their feet. They covered their feet. Now,
whatever seraphims are, we know that they're not sinners. And
yet, they're created. The scripture says that the stars
are not pure in his sight. He's so holy that everything
is corrupted compared to him. And they had to cover their feet
with two of their wings. And God says now, Moses, take
your shoes off. Place where you stand is holy
ground. This is the holy law. This is
the holy mountain. And you're going to expose your
creatureness before me. And in doing so, confess my holiness. Moreover, he said, I am the God
of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God
of Jacob. And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon
God. Moses, I'm holy. I'm holy. You've got to get to Kadesh.
You've just got to. You're not gonna be able to stand
in the presence of a holy God, the one who's holy, harmless,
undefiled, and separate from sinners. Bless the Lord, O my
soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Joshua, choose out six cities,
three on the West and three on the East of Jordan and name them
these names. The first one, the first one
is Kedesh. Our God's holy. And if we're
not found in Christ, we will be consumed by his holiness.
His holiness will not be satisfied. We've got a trouble, don't we?
Lord, I need a refuge. I need a place to escape the
storm of God's holy justice and God's holy wrath. A place where
the law has been satisfied. Where is that place? Christ is
that place. Flee to Kedesh the second city
in the six cities You see it right here in our text in Joshua
chapter 20 is called Shechem Shechem now Shechem translated
means shoulder or back and You know We've got a burden that
we can't carry don't we? We really do. Oh, wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? I'm
crushed by the weight of my sin. I can't carry it. Come, come
to Shechem. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden. I'll give you rest. My shoulders
are broad. The governments are upon my shoulders. I can bear the weight of your
sin completely." And that's exactly what he did on Calvary's cross.
And so the holy God of Kedesh is also the God of Shechem. And
he says, you need refuge. Your shoulders are not broad
enough. You can't carry the weight of your own sin. You can't escape
the power of Satan. Samson's able. He can take those
gates, his shoulders are broad. And he took the gates of that
Philistine city and took them up on the mountain, didn't he?
And exposed the enemy. The gates of hell shall not prevail
against me. Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona,
flesh and blood didn't reveal the son to you, my father, which
is in heaven. He made it known to you that
I am the Christ, the son of the living God. and that my shoulders
are able. Flee to Shechem. Flee to Shechem. Flee to Kadesh. Flee to Shechem. He is able. The third one is
the word, is the city of Hebron. Now, Hebron is where Abraham
first built an altar. It's, you remember, where Sarah
was buried at Machpelah. That's in Hebron. And when David
first set up his kingdom, the first royal city, before he went
to Jerusalem, was Hebron. Translated, it means unity, association,
or fellowship. Now, how are you and I going
to have fellowship with God? How are we going to have union
with God? How are we going to have any
association with Him? If we didn't have Hebron to flee
to, we would have to say with Peter, depart from me for I'm
a sinful man. What do you have to do with me?
We would have to say exactly what that demoniac said in the
Gadarenes, wouldn't he? When he saw the Lord Jesus Christ,
he said, I know who you are. What have you have to do with
me? What association do we have? We don't have any association.
We don't have anything in common. We don't have any place to have
unity. Unless you work that out for
me. I have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. So this
holy God has provided for us Hebron. This God who is able
to carry the burden of our sin has provided for us Shechem and
Kadesh and now Hebron. Look at the first, the fourth,
the fourth of the six cities. Beezer. Beezer. It means defense. It means enclosure. It means fortress. And when the
Lord Jesus Christ said in John chapter 10, my sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them
eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man
pluck them out of my father's hand. No man can pluck them out
of my father's hand. Why? Because they're in Bezer. They have fled to the city of
refuge. They've escaped the law and they've
been enclosed. They're right there in my hand.
No man, you can't take yourself out of his hand. Isn't that glorious? You can't. You can't take yourself
out. Nobody else can take you out.
He is a covert from the storm. He's provided for us an enclosure,
a fortress, and the city is called Bezer. So we have Kedesh, which
reminds us of the holiness of God. And we have a place to find
refuge. from the justice of his holiness. We've got Shechem. The Lord Jesus
Christ, his shoulders are broad enough to bear the full burden
of our sin. And that's exactly what he did
on Calvary's cross. He put them away once and for
all by the sacrifice of himself. Not one sin was left unpunished. Hebron, unity, fellowship. I've got union with Christ. As
he is, so am I. In this world right now, by virtue
of what he's done on Calvary's cross, I have fellowship with
God. I've got unity with him. I'm
found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is of the
law, but that righteousness which is by the faithfulness of the
Lord Jesus Christ." What a glorious city. Beezer, an enclosure, a
defense, a fortress where He has hid me in Christ, and Ramoth. Ramoth, exaltation, height. This is a city that was built
on a, on a large hill. And the scripture says that God
has given him a name, which is above every name that at the
name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess
that Jesus is the Christ to the glory of God, the father. Beezer
reminds us of the preeminence that God has given to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we flee to him and give to
him all the praise and all the glory for having successfully
accomplished the salvation of his people once and for all. We're not very exalted, are we?
We're just the opposite, aren't we? We're just the opposite. He takes us off the dunghill,
finds us in our sin, poor, blind, wretched, naked, miserable. What do we have? We've got the
city of Beezer. We can flee to that city of refuge.
And in Christ, by virtue of our union with Christ, we have been
seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. What glorious hope we
have. The sixth of the seven cities
is the city of Golan. Translated, it means joy. Joy. There's a lot of things in this
life that would threaten to rob us of our joy, aren't there?
There's afflictions, there's troubles, there's circumstances,
there's things that we don't anticipate. We're so easily disquieted, aren't
we? It's so easy for us to lose our
joy. And the Lord said, the joy of
the Lord. The joy of the Lord, that's our
strength. Rejoice in the Lord always and
again, I say rejoice You've got a city you can flee to it's the
city of Golan the city of Golan and in all of your heartache
and all your afflictions and all your trials and troubles
or whatever it comes and most especially your sin Oh, the shame
and the guilt of our sin robs us of our joy, doesn't it? It
robs us of our joy. What are we going to do? I'll
tell you what we're going to do. We're going to flee to Golan.
We're going to run to Golan and find the Lord Jesus Christ to
be our joy. to be the one to cause us to
rejoice in what He's done for us and what He's finished for
us. You'll have these six cities. The manslayer who killed unwittingly,
didn't know what he was doing. You know, that's confirmed by
what the Lord said on the cross, isn't it? Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do. They know not what they do. Flee to Christ. What glorious
refuge He has given to us in all our needs. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we're thankful for this picture of the Lord Jesus that you've
given to us. We pray that we would be reminded
by your Holy Spirit. Our need. For someone to stand
in our stead. The presence of thy holiness. And there's only one. There's
only one. Lord, give us the grace to run
to Shechem. Give us the grace, Lord, to see
all these pictures of Christ fulfilled in his glorious person
and finished work. Give us faith to find him to
be our refuge. For it's in his name we ask it.
Amen. Number 14 in Gospel Hymns, number
14. In the Beloved accepted am I,
risen, ascended, and seated on high. Saved from all sin through
His infinite grace, With the redeemed ones accorded a place. In the Beloved, God's marvelous
grace, Calls me to dwell in this wonderful place. God sees my Savior, and then
He sees me. In the Beloved, accepted and
free. In the Beloved, how safe my retreat! In the Beloved, accounted complete! Who can condemn me? In Him I Savior and keeper forever is
he. In the Beloved I went to the
tree. There in his person by faith
I may see Infinite wrath rolling over his
head. Infinite grace, for he died in
my stead. I meant to tell you all that
Gene, Mary's father, those of you that have been to Sarasota,
well, Gene's been here on several occasions, actually, over the
last two or three years. They don't expect him to survive
more than another day or two. So I'll be going over there tomorrow. But Lord enables you to pray
for Mary, Virgil, and Gene, and that whole family. Actually,
Virgil's family has come down, and there's going to be a lot
of people there this weekend. So pray for me and pray for the
family over there, OK? Thank you.