Okay, turn with me again tonight
to the book of Joshua chapter 7. When I reviewed the events
that transpired in Joshua chapter 7 and began to study Joshua chapter
8, I saw somewhat an interesting pattern unfold. So tonight, in
way of reviewing chapter 7 and introducing chapter 8, I want
us to see some things that chronologically transpired concerning Israel,
the people of God, that's very applicable to God's people today. And it was particular enlightening
to me to see the order in which these things were revealed. You
know, God is a God of order. And with our great God, there's
a natural progression of things, natural and spiritual. So tonight
I want to briefly give you eight things from these two chapters
that I feel should be very instructive to us. They were to me and they
continue to be. Let me give them to you. They
seem to transpire naturally the same way as they do spiritually
for the child of God. And here are the eight things
I want us to consider. First, sin. Secondly, pride. Third, defeat. Fourthly, humility. Fifthly, grace. Sixthly, forgiveness. And seven, obedience. And eight,
victory. In chapter seven, we clearly
see the folly and the foolishness of Israel and their undertaking
to take the city of Ai. As you remember, the spies came
back and said, Piece of cake, we got it. Ain't no need for
the whole army to go. We'll send 2,000, 3,000 men.
We'll wipe them out. And there was a great consequence
because of their actions. They didn't seek God. They didn't
seek his will. And there are great consequences
when men and women, even believers, endeavor to do things their own
way and by their own will. A question that I very often
ask myself, why did I do that? Do you ever ask yourself that?
There's another question I often ask myself, will I ever learn? Will I ever learn? Lord, help
us to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's how we learn. by growing
in His grace and in the knowledge of Him, the Lord Jesus. And we
with spiritual understanding see something of our folly and
our foolishness by what is found in us by nature. The first of
eight things that enlightened eyes see is our sin. All of Israel's troubles and
all of Israel's problems were because of sin. That's always
been the case with the sons and daughters of Adam, even those
who believe. We've often said that sin is
the reason and the cause of all our problems and trouble today,
and they are. It can all be traced back to
sin. Look again at verse one of chapter seven. But the children
of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing, For Achan,
the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the
tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing and the anger of the Lord
was kindled against the children of Israel. We see that all of
Israel was considered guilty of a great sin because of the
actions of one man. Does that sound familiar to you? What a picture that is. of us
and our father Adam. When Adam sinned against God
willfully in the garden as our federal head and as our representative
by the disobedience of this one man, we too sinned and failed. We read that a moment ago in
Romans 5, by the disobedience of one man, sin ended the world.
And death by sin, the wages of sin is death. That's what Paul
told us in Romans chapter five. For as by one man's disobedience,
many were made sinners. All were made sinners, many compared
to the... Anyway, so by the obedience of
one shall many be made righteous. God was specific with Adam. in the garden when he made man,
forbidding him to partake of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. And God was also very specific
with Israel in the taking of the goodly spoils of Jericho. And as we've seen, there's always
great consequence in disobeying God. In verse 19 of Joshua chapter
six, The Lord, very specific, he said, but all the silver and
gold, how much of it? All of it. And the vessels of
brass and iron, how much of it? All of it, are consecrated unto
the Lord. They shall come into the treasury
of the Lord. In other words, they're mine.
And that's exactly what Achan did. He took that which belonged
to God alone. Men and women today still do
the same thing. They endeavor to rob God of His glory and the
salvation of sinners by saying, haven't we, haven't we by work
of our own righteousness done this and done that? Aren't we
something special? And haven't we by the power of
our own doing and by our own will not done this and not done
that? And what does God say? He says,
depart from me, ye that work iniquity. I never knew you. And we're reminded once again
that salvation is not us knowing the Lord, but the Lord knowing
us. And we know him and we love him because he first loved us.
What we consider to be righteousness, God calls it what it really is. He calls it iniquity. And it's
righteousness, okay, what we do, but it's self-righteousness,
and it's filthy rags, and God won't have it, and God won't
accept it. And that brings us to the second
thing in the chain of progression here, and that's pride. Go hand
in hand. One of the first results of Adam's
sin was pride. He blamed his sin on his wife. Really on God. And his wife blamed
her sin on the serpent, but really on God. You see, there's such
pride involved when a sinner will not take responsibility
of their sin and they blame God for it. And one of the first results
of Israel's sin was pride. The pride of fallen men and women
is the result of sin. Israel was lifted up in pride. It was nothing but pride exhibited
by the spies, as I mentioned a moment ago. They returned and
they just assumed that they could easily take the city with no
real effort at all. And if I may paraphrase in chapter
seven, verses three and four, they said, no need for us to
Make a big deal out of this. We got this in the bag. They're
no match for us. We got it. After what they did in Jericho,
this was no challenge they thought was no challenge for them at
all. But, you know, they didn't really do anything in Jericho.
God did it all. They walked around the city.
They blew the trumpet. But God knocked the walls down
to the ground. How easy it is to forget that
salvation is not what we do for God, but what God does for us. And as we saw in this first battle
of Ai, Israel didn't consult God and they went into battle
in their own willful, sinful pride and the consequences were
disastrous. And how foolish of them and how
foolish of us when we go to do anything without consulting with
the Lord. How prideful we are when we do.
May we always remember that pride goeth before destruction and
a haughty spirit before a fall, Proverbs 16, 18. The wicked through
the pride of his countenance will not seek after God. God
is not in all his thoughts, David said. Therefore pride compasseth
them about as a chain, and violence covereth them as a garment. And
that verse very well describes what happened to Israel in their
first attempt to take Ai. Their pride chained them in defeat,
and their violence against them covered them as a garment. When pride cometh, then
cometh shame, but with the lowly is wisdom. Only by pride cometh
contention, but with the well-advised is wisdom," wrote the wise man. And God had very well advised
them in all their success until now, but they went this time
without God's advice and without God's blessings. May we never
do that. God help us not to do that. A
man's pride shall bring him low, but honor shall uphold the humble
in spirit. And because of the pride of their
own free will, 3,000 men ran from that little army of AI and
36 men lost their lives that day. Pride is a bad thing. It always comes before destruction.
It always comes before a great fall. God hates pride. A proud look's the first thing
mentioned on a list of things that God hates, even above murderers. No man or woman who's been saved
by God's grace and by the Lord Jesus Christ has any reason whatsoever
to be prideful. What do we have that we haven't
received? And why do we glory as if we
didn't receive it? It's God who makes us to differ,
friends. And then that brings us to the
third thing. First sin, then pride, and then defeat. Just
a natural succession. As we've already seen in the
scriptures concerning pride, it comes before destruction and
a great fall. But what is that but defeat? That's exactly what happened
to Israel. Their sin, their pride brought them a great and embarrassing
defeat at the hands of this insignificant army of AI. And I looked at some
synonyms for the word defeat today, and they're all throughout
the scriptures. In the Bible, the word defeat
means to disappoint, to frustrate, to bring to naught, to subdue,
to overthrow, to overwhelm, to reject, confuse, confound, to
thwart. And most every reference in the
scriptures to these words, these synonyms for the word to defeat,
always have to do with God. You see, it's God who disappoints. It's God who frustrates, brings
to naught. It's God who subdues. It's God
that overthrows, rejects, confuses, confounds. and thwarts the purposes
of evil and sinful men and women. And that's the case here in Joshua
chapter 7. The same God who was behind the
victory at Jericho in Joshua chapter 6 is the same God who
was behind the defeat in Joshua chapter 7 in Ai. After all, God
Almighty is the first cause of all things. I remember the first
time I heard that, I kind of shook my head, but you know now,
I see that's so. He's behind all things. All things
work together according to His will and purpose, after the counsel
of His own will. And all things work together
for God's people. And Israel's defeat was because
of their sin and their pride, and it always becomes before
the sinful and proud mans. Fall. And then, by God's grace,
when it comes to His chosen people, things go in a favorable direction. In spite of our sin, in spite
of our pride, in spite of our defeat, God is merciful and gracious
to those who are in Christ. Isn't that what grace is? Unmerited favor, undeserved.
Isn't that what mercy is? Undeserved favor? I'll take it. I'll sure enough take it. And
that brings us to the fourth thing, humility. It's in the perfect order of
God that sin, pride, and defeat brings His elect people to that
wonderful thing called humility. It's very often, almost always,
that hard trials and tribulations and troubles teach us something
about humility. David said in Psalm 119 verse
71, he said, it's good for me that I've been afflicted. How
so? How so? You know, the world thinks
you're crazy when you say something like that. It's good for me that
I've had this trouble. It's good for me that I've been
through this. It's good for me that I've been through that.
And the world just shakes their head. How's that good? And David
said that I might learn something about God, that I might learn
thy statues. You know, I'm convinced the humility
must be taught. It sure doesn't come naturally. It doesn't, automatically come
when a sinner is saved because I'm still learning. How about
you? Affliction and trouble causes
men and women to learn God's ways, His statutes. David learned
by his affliction and he said, it was good for me. And David
knew something about trouble. His brothers detested him. When
the prophet came and sought God's king among David's sons, his
father forgot about him. He marched all the others in
front of the prophet. And then the prophet said, is
this all? Is there not another? And he said, oh, we forgot about
the little ruddy boy that's my youngest, the shepherd boy. After
he became the darling of Israel and slew Goliath, his father-in-law,
King Saul tried to kill him and then later on his own son Absalom
did the same. Because of his sin with Bathsheba
and murder of her husband, the prophet Nathan pronounced judgment
upon him. because he disobeyed God and
counted the people of Israel out of pride. God sent a plague
and killed 70,000 men. And you know, I was reading today,
many of the commentators and Bible scholars say that not just
70,000 men died that day, but that probably included as many
as 200,000 women and children. It was a plague. Oh yes. David knew something about trouble.
But do you notice what he said about it? He said, it's good
for me. It's good for me. And I suppose
it is. The times in my life when I felt
closest to God, when I reached out to God, when I pleaded with
God the most to help me was when I was in trouble. It's good for
me that I've been afflicted, that I might learn God's statutes,
that word statutes means God's ways, God's providence, God's
predetermined purpose. And as we saw last study, Joshua
fell before the Ark of the Covenant and he rent his clothes and he
repented with sorrow and humility, chapter seven, verse six. And that reminds me that God
will see to it that his people have a spirit of humility. And
the majority of the time, it's in and by and through affliction.
It just is. And why does that surprise us?
God chastens those that He loves. The next time you're chastened
by God, I hope you remember that, and I hope that I do. Then we
see that grace follows humility. Isn't that beautiful? This is
the fifth thing. God's grace comes to sinners, proud and defeated,
and then humbled. The scripture says, surely he
scorneth the scorners, but he giveth grace unto the lowly.
James said, but he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God
resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. It's almost as if this verse
was written for Achan, Proverbs 16, 19. He says, better it is
to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the
spoil of the proud. And whosoever shall exalt himself
shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be
exalted. Matthew 23, 12. Lord, teach me
to be humble. Cause me to be humble. Humble
yourselves, therefore, unto the mighty hand of God, that He may
exalt you in due time. You and I have nothing to pay,
no ability to earn. Sinful, proud, and rebellious
we are. We deserve nothing but death
and wrath and condemnation. We have no reason to be proud.
We should be humble. While we were yet sinners, proud. Rebellious. Christ died for us. Those who humble themselves can
be certain of exaltation. Those who humble themselves,
God gives more grace. He resists the proud, but he
gives grace to the humble. Lord, help me to be humble. And
then we have the sixth thing found in Joshua chapter eight,
verses one and two. We see the forgiveness of God. What a beautiful thing forgiveness
is. Especially when you're the one
that needs to be forgiven. That's all of us. And the Lord said unto Joshua,
fear not, neither be thou dismayed. We talked about that Sunday.
There's nothing for us to fear. There's nothing for us as believers
to be concerned about. Why? Because our God is with
us. And He's our God. And He's the
God. He's the only one that can help
us. God in forgiveness says here to Joshua in verse one, fear
not, neither be thou dismayed. Take all the people of war with
thee, all of them, not just two or 3,000, all of them, and arise
and go up to Ai, see, now look, I have given into thy hand the
king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land." That's
pretty much what he said to them when they went to Jericho, you
remember? He said, I've given you their king, I've given you
their men of valor, and I've given you the city. It's all
yours, and I gave it to you. Everything that we have, Shelly,
God gave us, everything. And then verse two, and thou
shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her
king. Only the spoils thereof and the
cattle thereof shall you take for a prey unto yourselves. This time I'm gonna give it to
you. and lay thee in ambush for the
city behind it." Now, the one thing that God prohibited was
the one thing that Achan could not resist. I've thought about
that so much. Why are we like that? Because
of sin. The single act of one man brought
death to the nation. And again, we see something of
the fallen man. I alluded to it in the beginning.
God gave the land to his people and prohibited only one thing
from them, just as God did Adam. He said, Adam, of all the trees
in the garden you can partake of, but not this one. This one
is mine. And that's the very one that
Adam wanted. Boy, that shows us a little something of ourselves,
doesn't it? God gave man everything. God
only prohibited the use of one thing in the garden. The one
thing that God prohibited, Adam could not resist. Achan might
have stolen anything from Jericho. He might have taken precious
jewels or maybe some kind of weapons or things of great value,
but he could not resist what God had designated as his own. Oh, wretched men and women, we
are. Like water, which always seeks
the lowest level, unstable men and women will always seek and
pursue the basest of things. It's part of the curse. Men want
what belongs to God exclusively. And in doing so, in ignorance,
they believe that they're bringing themselves to a higher, nobler,
deified plane of existence. It's amazing what we can convince
ourselves of. And that was man's temptation
by the serpent. He said, you shall not surely
die, for God doth know in the day that you eat thereof, then
your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing
good and evil. And I can just see Adam and Eve
looking at one another, shaking their heads, going, that sounds
pretty good. Sin disrupts our lives. Sin ruins us just on a thousand
levels. Sin brings death to light our
door. But friends, sin does not ever
alter one aspect of God's purpose. The predestined purpose of all
things belongs to God alone. Achan, whose name means trouble,
brought trouble to Israel. But out of that trouble came
great blessings, as we see. God was still fulfilling the
promise that he made to Abraham all those years before, because
he's faithful to the promise. In spite of me, God blesses me. Now listen to me, no sinful act
of mere mortal man can annul the sovereign purpose of God
to any degree. God forgives all His people,
the sinners they are, for one reason and one reason only, for
Christ's sake. And that brings us to the seventh
thing, and that's obedience. As we'll see in future studies,
I hope and pray Israel faithfully obeyed God and their obedience
turned their past defeats into future victories. It's a great mistake to suppose
that faith in God renders it unnecessary to be obedient to
what God has commanded us. That's a misconception by many
professing believers. Sadly, it seems to me that some
men and women profess to love the message of God's sovereign
grace simply because they feel it somehow excuses their sin
and their willful rebellion. I've heard folks who profess
to believe in sovereign grace excuse their sin and their willful
disobedience by saying things like, well, I'm just a sinner. And that's what sinners do, they
sin. But to excuse ourselves from
the responsibility of being obedient to God, dear friends, and His
word is to answer yes to that question, shall we continue in
sin that grace may abound? Confidence in God doesn't create
an excuse or a passive attitude in the child of God. No, a child
of God is gonna be obedient to God's word of instruction in
life. And when they're not, it absolutely
breaks their hearts. Any and every son and daughter
taught Any son or daughter that loved
their parents desired to be pleasing to them. I sure did. I wasn't
always. I failed more than I was ever
victorious in that. But I'll tell you this much,
it broke my heart when I didn't, when I displeased them. And every
true believer desires to please their heavenly Father. They will
not willfully disobey Him, but they'll strive for obedience. And that brings me to the eighth
and the final thing, and that's victory. I wanna read several verses here
in chapter eight, beginning in verse three. I think just reading the verses
Better prove what I'm trying to say than me making comments
on them. But let me say this. Well, let
me read them first, beginning in verse three. So Joshua arose
and all the people of war to go up against Ai, and Joshua
chose out 30,000 mighty men of valor. Far cry from the 3,000
before. and he sent them away by night.
And he commanded them, saying, behold, ye shall lie in wait
against the city, even behind the city, go not very far from
the city, but be ye all ready. And I and all the people that
are with me will approach unto the city, and it shall come to
pass when they come out against us, as at the first, that we
will flee before them." We're gonna act like we're running
again. for they will come out after us till we've drawn them
from the city, for they will say, they flee before us as at
the first, therefore we will flee before them. Then you shall
rise up from the ambush and seize upon the city for the Lord your
God will deliver it into your hand. And it shall be, when you
have taken the city, that you shall set the city on fire, according
to the commandment of the Lord shall you do. See, I have commanded
you.' And Joshua therefore sent them forth, and they went to
lie in ambush, and behold, between Bethel and Ai, on the west side
of Ai, but Joshua lodged that night among the people." Boy,
what a picture that is of Christ. lodging among us. And Joshua
rose up early, verse 10, in the morning and numbered the people
and went up. And he and the elders of Israel before the people to
Ai, and all the people, even the people of war that were with
him, went up and drew nigh and came before the city and pitched
on the north side of Ai. Now there was a valley between
them and Ai. And he took about 5,000 men and
set them to lie in ambush between Bethel and Ai on the west side
of the city. When they had set the people,
even all the host that was on the north of the city, and their
liars in wait on the west of the city, Joshua went that night
into the midst of the valley. And it came to pass when the
king of Ai saw it, that they hasted and rose up early, and
the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he
and all his people at a time appointed before the plain. But
he wist not," he didn't know, that there were liars and ambush
against him behind the city. And Joshua and all Israel made
as if they were beaten before them and fled by the way of the
wilderness. And all the people that were in Ai were called together
to pursue after them. And they pursued after Joshua
and were drawn away from the city. And there was not a man
left in Ai or Bethel that went not after Israel, not out after
Israel. And they left the city open and
pursued after Israel. And the Lord said unto Joshua,
stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward Ai, for I
will give it into thine hand. And Joshua stretched out the
spear that he had in his hand toward the city. And the ambush
arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had
stretched out his hand, and they entered into the city and took
it and hasted and set the city on fire. And when the men of
Ai looked behind them, they saw and behold, the smoke of the
city ascended up to heaven. And they had no power to flee
this way or that. And the people that fled to the
wilderness turned back upon the pursuers. And when Joshua and
all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city and that the
smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again and slew the
men of Ai. And the other issued out of the
city against them so that they were in the midst of Israel,
some on this side and some on that side. And they smoked them
so that they let none of them remain or escape. And the king
of Ai, they took alive and brought him to Joshua. And it came to
pass when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants
of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and
when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword until they
were consumed, that all the Israelites returned to Ai and smote it with
the edge of the sword. And so it was. that all that
fell that day, both of men and women, were 12,000, even all
the men of Ai. Look at verse 26. For Joshua
drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear until
he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Just as God had said, it came
to pass. When we sin, as the proud sinners
we are. We show ourselves to be defeated
by sin, but when God in mercy and grace gives us humility and
he saves us and he forgives us, we strive to be obedient to him
in all things, but we're still plagued by sin and only in Christ
are we obedient. And beloved, it's in and by and
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone that we have the
victory over sin, death, and the grave. Thank God for His
unspeakable gift. And it is unspeakable. I can't
explain it. Jesus Christ, whom having not
seen, you love. And Jesus Christ, in whom though
now you see Him not, you believe. You rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory. God could have left us to ourselves,
but no less God. The Christ being the way, the
truth, and the life brought us to our great God, for no man
comes to the Father but by Him. And we with unspeakable joy thank
Him for it, don't we? May God be pleased to make it
so for his own glory are good. And for Christ's sake.