Joshua chapter eight, verse 30. Then Joshua built an altar unto
the Lord God of Israel in Mount Abel. Then Joshua built an altar,
it says. When did Joshua built an altar?
Well, in verse 25, after 12,000 men and women of Ai were killed. Verse 28, after Joshua burned
Ai and made it a heap forever. Verse 29, after the king of Ai
was hung on a tree. And in verse 29, after a heap
of stones was raised as his grave, then, Joshua built an altar unto
the Lord God of Israel. Now, how can anyone read these
words and not believe that God Almighty is a holy God of justice? He will by no means clear the
guilty. People today don't seem to be
too concerned about their sin. You know why? Because they really
don't believe that God's gonna punish sin. They really don't
believe that God is a God of justice. The soul that sins, it shall
die. Folks don't seem to be too concerned
about that. They live on, live happily in
their sin. I believe because they really
don't believe that God is going to punish sin. You cannot stand in opposition
to the God of the Bible and live. And I say the God of the Bible
because the majority of people are preaching today a God that's
not the God of the Bible. It's a God of their imagination. And you don't have to listen
to them long to see that and to understand that. A God that wants to do something
is not the God of the Bible. The God that is trying to do
something is not the God of the Bible. A God who will not punish sin
is not the God of the Bible. And every believer, however,
will rejoice that God's holy justice will not permit those
who are in Christ to be punished. He who justifies the wicked and
he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination
to the Lord. Proverbs 17, five. And that's
the beautiful thing, friends, about the holy justice of God.
It does not spare those who hate His Son, and it does not condemn
those that love Him. Those who hate God's Son deserve
His wrath. Can we just be honest? As one
preacher friend of mine always said, just between us girls,
can we be honest? Those who hate God's Son deserve
His wrath, and those who love Him Worship Him. To whom did Joshua build this
altar? Verse 30 says, unto the Lord,
God of Israel. And that's what the remainder
of this chapter, chapter eight is about. It records for us what
the people of Israel did after the Lord accomplished the victory
of Ai for them. After they destroyed the whole
city, 12,000 men and women, And some would say, well, that's
not my God. My God wouldn't do that. My God's a God of love. Then your God is not the God
of the Bible. He hung the king of Ai, Joshua
did. Well, that's not my God. That's
the God. They worshiped God for the great
things that he had done. But more importantly, we see
the true reason here for worshiping God. And if you hadn't already
seen from the passage of scripture and even the songs that we sung
tonight, my subject is about worship. Worship is a very misused
word. Worship's a very misunderstood
action in our day. Webster's Dictionary defines
worship as to show feeling, expression, reverence, and adoration for
a deity. Well, there's only one deity.
There's only one God. And that gives us some valuable
insight into the problem with the worship that we have in our
day. And that is very few know the one true and living God in
order to worship Him. One who is not God cannot be
truly worshiped, and one who does not know God cannot truly
worship. Jesus Christ is the only object
and subject of worship. The Lord told that woman at the
well, he said, you worship, you know not what? We can say that
to a lot of folks today. I'm going to worship. Oh, we
had a wonderful worship service. You know not what you worship. You know not who you worship. Another definition for the word
worship is giving honor to someone in recognition of their merit.
Well, that narrows down the candidates who are worthy of worship even
further to only one. And that's God the Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ of whom we read about in Revelation chapter five. The one who is the line of the
tribe of Judah. The one who has prevailed, the
one worthy of taking the book out of the right hand of God
who sits upon the throne. Only God can do that. You try to take something from
God, only God can do that. The one who's worthy of opening
the book, the one to whom heaven sings, thou art worthy. The lamb who was slain to receive
power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory
and blessing. The one who sits upon the throne. The one who is the lamb of God
forever and ever. Friends, what men and women call
worship today is nothing more than just taking part in a religious
ceremony. They call raising their hands
worship. They call singing and clapping
worship. And what they call praying and
what they call preaching, they call worship, but it's anything
and everything but. True worship is from a heart
of thanksgiving. True worship does not attract
attention to itself. It's all about the reverence
and the adoration for and to the one who deserves all merit,
that being the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, the first time that
the word worship is used in the Bible is in Genesis chapter 22.
When God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son as a burnt offering
unto him, God said, take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac,
whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and
offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which
I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in
the morning, and he saddled his donkey, and he took two of his
young men with him, Isaac his son, along with the wood for
the burnt offering. And he went into the place of
which God had told him. And when they saw that mountain
from afar off, Abraham said to the young man, I and the lad,
speaking of Isaac, will go yonder and worship and come again to
you. We're coming back, but we're
going to worship. And Abraham took the wood of
the burnt offering and he laid it upon Isaac, his son. What
a picture that is of the Lord Jesus Christ carrying the wood
of the cross up Calvary's mountain. He took the fire in his hand
and a knife and they went both of them together. God went with
Christ up Calvary's mountain, but he forsook him while he hung
there. And he forsook him because our sin was laid upon him. Isaac
carried the wood to the mountain just as Christ carried that cross. Isaac saw the wood, the fire,
the knife, but he asked, where's the sacrifice for burnt offering?
You know the story well, what a wonderful story it is. And
the gospel rings clear in Abraham's answer. He said, God will provide
himself a lamb for burnt offering. Beloved God provides for himself
the sacrifice and God provides himself as the sacrifice. And that's where we can worship,
right there. So we see the true worship has
to do with Christ doing for God what we can never do for God.
Christ's crucifixion was not something that he did for us,
it's something that he did for God in which we most eternally
benefit from. And that's to provide a perfect
offering, a perfect sacrifice for sin and a perfect righteousness
for us. And Chris, I can look at you
straight in the eye tonight and tell you that you have the very
righteousness of Christ because of that blessed act that Christ did for you and
for me and all God's people. And that's always the incentive
for worshiping God. It's out of love, it's out of
thanksgiving for what God in Christ has done for us. Folks
in religion today act as if what they call worship is done for
the purpose of getting God worked up and in the mood to do something
good for them. Am I lying about that? Worship is a means of buttering
up God for greater blessings. I heard a man say not long ago,
the more I worship God, the more He blesses me. But the child
of God says, the more He blesses me in Christ, the more I desire
to worship Him. We love Him, why? Because He
first loved us. We worship God because He saves
us by His grace. He didn't have to save us. Who
ever started that rumor? God didn't have to save us. He
becomes no less God if he's not merciful. He has mercy on whom
he'll have mercy. He has compassion on whom he'll
have compassion. And Paul said, whom he will,
he hardeneth. Those whom he has mercy on are
thankful. And they don't say let's worship
God so that he'll bless us. The true child of God worships
Christ because he's already blessed them. Worshiping God's not about
fun and feelings. That's what it seems like anymore.
It's about giving God the honor and the reverence and the adoration
that's due him based upon the salvation that he's already accomplished
for them. Careful study of the scripture
reveals to us that worship has everything to do with the Lord
Jesus Christ. Christ is the altar. Christ is
the ark of the covenant. Christ is the priest. Christ
is the sacrifice. Christ is the subject and he's
the object of worship. And the first thing concerning
worship is that it's done in obedience to the command of God.
God commands us to worship him. According to the law of God,
Joshua and Israel were to build this altar unto the Lord and
worship Him with the burnt offerings and peace offerings. Again, verse
30, look at it with me. Then Joshua built an altar unto
the Lord God of Israel and Mount Abba. And Moses, the servant
of the Lord, commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in
the book of the law of Moses, God commands that all things
and all people are to worship Him. Let me show you that. Stick your
marker here in Joshua and look over at Psalm 96 with me. I want to show you two or three
verses here in the book of Psalms. Psalm 96, look at verse 9. 96-9 Psalm, oh worship the Lord
and the beauty of holiness, fear before Him. Who? All the earth. Everyone, everything. Look over
Psalm 148. Psalm 148 verse seven. Psalm 148, verse seven, praise
the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps, fire and hail
and snow and vapor and stormy wind fulfilling his word, mountains
and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts. and all
cattle, creeping things, and flying fowl, kings of the earth,
and all people, princes, and all judges of the earth, both
young men and maidens, and old men and children. Let them praise
the name of the Lord, for His name alone is excellent. His
glory is above the earth and heaven. Praise ye the Lord."
Turn over a couple of chapters. You may not even have turned
the page to Psalm 150. Verse six, the last verse in
the book of Psalms says this, let everything that hath breath
praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. Isaiah said, their land is full
of idols. They worship the work of their
own hands, that which their own fingers have made. That's the
issue with worship today. Men are lovers of self and worshipers
of self. Christ told that Samaritan woman
at the well, it's not where you worship. She tried to get him
sidetracked. We worship in the mountain, you
worship in the temple. He said, it's not where you worship,
it's who you worship. Only God is worthy of our worship
and Jesus Christ is God. Those men on Mars Hill had an
inscription to the unknown God. Paul said, of whom you ignorantly
worship. You're not worshiping him, you're
ignorantly worshiping him. That's not worshiping at all.
The Lord told that woman at the well, those that worship him
must worship him how? In spirit and in truth. When God reveals Himself to a
sinner, they'll worship Him, and they'll thank Him for the
great things that He's done for them. I can assure you of that.
Secondly, we see from our text back in Joshua 8, it's God who
commands us to build this altar, and it's God who instructs us
how to build it. And all the specifics of this
altar represent Christ and His work of salvation. If that's
one thing that I've seen in studying the Old Testament scriptures,
it's just that. It's all about Christ. All of
it. If God would truly give us eyes
to see every single word, every single verse, every punctuation
mark would somehow picture Christ, because it's all about Him. According to verse 31, this altar
must be an altar of whole stones of which no man had lift up iron. In other words, these were unhewn
stones, whole stones that had not been broken with hammers
or chiseled with any cut type of iron instrument. A lot of
times they had to chisel away at stones to make them fit what
they were building or whatever. But this altar was built of stones
that were unaltered by human means. Did you hear me? They were unaltered by human
means. These unhewn stones represent the humanity of Christ, who was
made subject to all trials that attend humanity. Jesus Christ
really was a man. And these things teach us that
Christ's sacrifice accomplished salvation without any help or
assistance of man. He was untouched by the hands
of man to help him. Christ is our altar and our sacrifice. Our salvation is excluded from
any works of ours. The altar is a place of sacrifice
and the Lord is the offering that was made upon that altar. Did you notice in verse 31 that
these offerings, they were burnt offerings unto the Lord? And
they were sacrificed peace offerings? There's no mention of the sin
offering here. There was no sin offering made.
Why is that? Well, it's understood in where
the people are found. They're in possession of the
land of promise. They're where the milk and honey
flow. They're in the gardens that they did not plant. They're
in the houses they did not build. They are fully and completely
saved. What a picture of the sinner
in Christ. The issue of sin has been settled. You see that? The sin offering
has to do with the confession of sin. But since sin has been
settled and put away, No mention of it. You know what that means? You don't have any sin. Not if
you're in Christ. They only need to offer the sacrifice
of peace and acceptance. That's it. The sacrifices that
speak to their sin being put away by the blood of Christ.
They have real peace and peace that passes all understanding
by that finished work of Christ. That's the only place that peace
is found. And knowing that what God requires
of me has been finished by Christ for me. Well, you say that all
the time. Thank you. That's the message. That's our hope. That's where
we rest. That's where we find comfort.
That's what Paul was speaking of in Colossians 1. And having
made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile
all things unto Himself, by Him, I say, whether they be things
in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometime alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now have He reconciled
in the body of His flesh through death to present you holy. Unblameable. and unreprovable
in his sight. Now that's what we really are,
holy, unblameable, unreprovable. And it's like, well, I don't
feel that way, Brother Dave, doesn't matter how you feel.
That's what you are in Christ. And to think otherwise is to
call God a liar. The burn offering declared that
they'd been accepted by God, conditioned on the righteous
blood offering and death of Christ. The peace offering was the declaration
of thanksgiving for what Christ had done. The sacrifice of praise
and thanksgiving can only be offered where sin is no longer
an issue with God. Hebrews 10, 17, 18. And their
sins and iniquities will I remember no more. That's what God said. He's not a man that He should
lie. He's not gonna change His mind
about that. Now where remission of these
is, there's no more offering of sin. Why? Because there's
no more sin. You don't offer something for
something that doesn't exist. In verse 33, we have another
beautiful picture of the gospel of Christ. Look at it with me,
verse 33. And all of Israel and their elders
and officers and their judges stood on this side, the ark,
and on that side before the priests, the Levites, which bear the ark
of the covenant of the Lord. as well the stranger as he that
was born among them, half of them over against Mount Gerizim
and half of them over against Mount Abba. And Moses, the servant
of the Lord, had commanded before that they should bless the people
of Israel. Now, between these two groups,
you've got six of the 12 tribes was on one side and six on the
other, and in between them was the Ark of the Covenant. That
represents Christ in the midst of his people. And it's interesting
to note the meaning of those two mountains, Gerizim and Abba. Abba means barren or bald, and
Gerizim means cut off. These two mountains, of course,
point to Christ. and his sacrifice for chosen
sinners. How so, you might ask? Well, one of the definitions
of the word Golgotha, as you know, is skull or bald. Mark 15.22 calls it the place
of the skull. And this is where the law and
the altar It's there that the law and the altar were placed,
and both picture Christ. On Calvary's mountain, that barren
mountain, that place of the skull, our Lord was cut off. That's what the word gerizim
means, cut off. Our Lord was cut off and forsaken
by God when He was made sin for His people. And you and I should
have been forsaken. But Christ took our place. He
was forsaken of God in our place. And that's why you and I can
have fellowship with him now. Isaiah 53a, he was taken from
prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation?
For he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression
of my people was he stricken. Daniel 9.26 says the Messiah
shall be cut off, but not for himself. It was on Calvary's
mountain, dear friends, that Christ, the burnt offering, met
with the holy law of God and satisfied it, fulfilling every
holy requirement of blood and death for sin. On that mountain,
mercy and truth met together and righteousness and peace kissed
each other. Abba and Gerizim picture the
substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I
need for you to think with me here, and it'll be a great blessing
to you if God is pleased to bless it to you, as well as all the
Old Testament scripture was meant to be. The Old Testament was
written aforetime for our learning, that we through patience and
comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Don't you find great
comfort in the scriptures? Most prized possession any of
us have, only God might show us that. The latter part of verse 33 declares
that from Gerizim and Abba, they should bless the people of Israel. It's here that we see the beauty
of the gospel, really. Because Christ went to Golgotha,
Abba, and was cut off, Gerizim, in doing so, he fulfilled the
curse of the law, Galatians 3, 13. Verse 34, and afterward, He read all the words of the
law, Joshua did, the blessings and the cursings according to
all that is written in the book of the law. And then now we see
Christ, who is represented by the Ark of the Covenant, is in
the midst of his people. And as they see the law and they
hear it read, they also see the altar and the sacrifice in their
midst. They're looking at that Ark of
the Covenant. And now even the law is a blessing
to the redeemed. They look on it as holy and just
and good, fulfilled by Christ and fulfilled in them. The law
demands that they are now pronounced not guilty, not guilty by reason
of justifying blood. The law flows down from Abba
and Gerizim as a blessing to the people. And as Joshua reads
the law, both cursing and blessing, the people see that both are
met in the Lord Jesus Christ. What a picture of the gospel
this is. Jesus Christ, the one who resides in their midst, their
mercy seat, their propitiation for sin has fulfilled the law
in their room instead. So what are blessed people to
do? Offer up peace offerings unto the Lord. They're to worship
their God in spirit and in truth. Hebrews 13, 15, by him, therefore, Let us offer the sacrifice of
praise to God continually, continually. That is the fruit of our lips
giving thanks to His name. I won't turn you there, but let
me read this scripture to you, Jeremiah 33, 11. It says, the
voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom
and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that shall say,
praise the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good, for his mercy
endureth forever, and of them that shall bring the sacrifice
of praise into the house of the Lord. Thank God. for His mercy and His grace. May the Lord enable us to worship
Him as we ought and as He deserves. Oh, that's my prayer. Not that
we just meet together and go through the motions, but that
we honestly and truly worship Him who loved us and gave Himself
for us. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive
glory and honor and power, for Thou hast created all things,
and for Thy pleasure they are and were created. And that goes
for the believer. We're new creations in the Lord
Jesus Christ, new creatures. Old things passed away. Behold,
all things have become new, made in the very image of Christ Himself,
conformed to His image without sin. Holy, unreprovable, unblameable
in His sight. We ought to worship Him. May
God make it so for His glory, our good, and for Christ's sake.