Eric is proof that I can be trained.
So I got the nod. So I'll try not to be too close. Try not to be too far away. But
we're going to turn again if you would, if you have a Bible
or mobile device that does the same to Joshua 23. And as you're making your way
over there and I don't know that there's any
chance that I'm gonna read that from there, but we'll see how it goes. As you're making your way there,
and as we think about this passage, it's very true what a number
of people, including Brother Joe, said to me. A lot of times,
you know what somebody believes by how they preach certain passages. And you bring in, whether you
realize it or not, you bring in your presuppositions and your
thoughts into the text of scripture. Now, I think there's an authorized
way to do that, and that authorized way is brought up, and I posted
this on the church Facebook, is Jesus walking on the road,
making the comment to the disciples, slow of heart to, I'm gonna butcher
it here, to hear all that the prophets said. the scriptures
that you're reading, these are those that speak of me. And I
know that that's definitely butchering the passage. And there's a number
of other places that say that the linchpin, the centerpiece
of all of scripture is Christ. So we're not guilty of a false
reading of scripture if we come to a passage looking for Christ. And I bring that up because one,
commentator here, he was like, it's renewing the vows of the
covenant. I'll let you guess his theological
background by saying something like that. Another one says,
Joshua, a crisis in leadership. Those are all great topics. And
Joe reminded me way far too often for me to forget easily that
it's not enough to say true things, it's more important to get to
the right thing. And there's only one right thing.
So he said, Bernie, it's not that hard. There's only one right
thing in scripture. So make sure you get to it. But
I do want to talk about the passage and I want to kind of bring it
together and show you hopefully by the grace of God, what this passage
says to us and how it can encourage us. So first of all, you may
have caught that Joshua thought he was old, really old, well
stricken in years, ready to go the way of the earth. There's
a lot of repetition in this passage. I forget if it's 12 times that
the phrase, the Lord your God is there. And you'll see that
the writer, it isn't necessarily Joshua in this case, but these
are Joshua's words. The writer says again and again,
the same sort of thing. So what I'm going to do, is I'm
gonna take what this old man, who was a very faithful minister
to the people of God and leader of the people of God, said as
an admonition to the people who he was leading. Tim James said,
primarily on the mind of Joshua, and the one thing that stands,
which stands as instruction from the one who knows God, from one
who knows God is a rehearsal and recollection of the great
things that God has done for his people. So Joshua could have
started in a lot of places, but one of the things that he does
repeatedly as you scan down through this chapter is he says to the
people, remember what you have seen of God's grace. And there's
some phrases in here very much like chapter 21, But I'll just
read some of the phrases here as they come up. Verse three,
everything that the Lord your God has done. Also verse three,
it was the Lord your God who fought for you. Verse four, remember
how. Verse five, the Lord your God,
he pushed, he drove, he promised. And then verse nine, the Lord
has driven out before you. And then probably a present,
and perhaps future thing from their standpoint, but what he
says is, one of you routes a thousand because the Lord fights for you
just as he promised. And then verse 14, you know with
all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises
that the Lord gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled. Not one failed. So in case you're
in doubt, Joshua is not saying there's a problem with God. And
usually when we reflect and we think about life, our life, while
it may be true that our life is either we're going into a
trial, in the middle of a trial, or coming out of a trial, while
those things may be true, what we can say, looking back, if
we're one of God's children, is we can see how God guided
and provided And even though our wisdom may have taken us
a different way than what we went, we can look back many times
and say how great it was that God provided in the way that
he did. Now, one of the things that I
had meant to talk to Joe about and never did was to get like
a complete history of this church, right? Those of you who know
the history better than I, or even your own history as you
were made aware of this church, think about how great God was
in leading and guiding and providing people here. How much he provided
in bringing a faithful gospel minister who taught you for 37
years, brought him, brought his family, What a great blessing. And when we think about the challenges
that are ahead for us, just like Joshua was talking to them, if
we want to bring the crisis of leadership thing up, it's good
for us to reflect back on what God has done. We can reflect
back on a lot of other things. We can reflect back on our own
failures, on our own shoulda, woulda, coulda sort of things. But Joshua doesn't do that. He
starts with the main thing. God is the one who fights for
you. God is the one who's going to
provide for you going forward. Now, there are some warnings
and there are some promises. And I'm taking a little bit of
liberty with the passage in that I'm gonna talk about the warnings
first. I don't wanna end as a chapter
does on a negative note. But it's very, very important
that when we think about the admonitions here, both the negative
ones and the positive ones, that we start from the firm foundation
of what God has done and how he promised to keep it. We don't
know the future. I mean, Eric, you made an announcement,
even with some, if the lake's ready, if it's not ready, But
things change. Without delving too much, because
I wasn't here when somebody heard a siren in the middle of the
night, things change rather quickly. And we've all had moments like
that to a certain extent. And we don't know what's going
to happen. We try to plan. And don't get me wrong, planning
is important. It's very important to plan.
But when it comes to the things of God, it's very important for
us to remember that if God isn't the one opening the doors, if
God isn't the one prompting people to do certain things, then to
push when God's not pushing or to stop when God doesn't want
us to stop, there's gonna be some problems. We want to make
sure that God is our anchor in all that we do and all that we
say. So what should we avoid? So the first section is what
we've seen of God's grace. The second section that I want
to talk about, extracted from various verses here, what you
should avoid by God's grace. So you look, verse seven, don't
associate, don't invoke, don't serve, don't bow down. And then
the warnings, verse 12, if you turn away, Verse 13, you will
be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive. Verse 15,
just as he fulfilled all those promises, so he'll bring on you
all the evil things. And then verse 16 talks about
if you violate the covenant, then the Lord's anger will burn
and you will perish from the land. So when we think about
their context, It's very important for us to remember the people
of God in the Old Covenant going all the way actually prior to
the institution of the Mosaic Covenant, all the way back to
Adam. Salvation has always been the
same. God had to provide a lamb to
be sacrificed. Death and blood needed to be
spilled. Those prior to the cross looked
forward. Abraham looked forward and saw
my day. The prophets inquired on these
things and wished to see some of the things you're seeing,
I believe it's Peter who says that. Keep in mind, salvation
is the same. So what does it mean that they
violated the covenant? Well, the reality is Israel was
under a covenant for the land of promise. So that covenant
was a conditional covenant. a covenant that said, in order
for you to be in this land, you need to do certain things. Now
what's interesting, and you see it again and again in the history
of Israel, they blew it pretty much right away, right? I mean,
Joe had gone through Joshua. He could have just said after
Ai, well, nope, you didn't obey me, we're done, right? There's
no more promised land for you. we see that again and again throughout
scripture in in judges everyone does and it's judges right after
joshua chronologically as well as in in scripture they they
did what was right in their own eyes and then finally when things
were bad enough god help us right i mean it should sound familiar
i i don't know about you but my life is like that in a lot
of ways where i think i know better i think i have a handle
on what to do. I don't really need to think,
read scripture, think about the scriptural principles. I got
this down. And then you try to start the live stream this morning
and you can reinstall OBS, right? See if it works. I mean, it's
in the simple things. Of course, knowing what to do
and how to do it is great, but God has to provide. But back
to this conditional covenant. Even though it's true that the
things that he warns about were specific to the Old Covenant,
the principles are the same for us as believers. And hopefully
I'll get this right. I believe Joe liked to say, it
matters, but it doesn't count. And the reality is, is if you're
a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you do dumb things,
You do things like associating with pagans, invoking the name
of their gods, serving it to a certain extent. You have belief,
but you have unbelief. There are gonna be negative consequences. Now, I forget which psalm it
is. I believe it's 122. I came across
it this week. He doesn't always treat us as
our transgressions require God shows mercy to us. And I think
even more so under the New Covenant. But it was even true of the Old
Covenant. If you go back and you read the story of Lot, I
defy you to see the word righteous in the Old Testament when it
comes to describing the behavior of Lot. But it says in the New
Testament that Lot, righteous Lot was vexed by their behavior. What was he doing there in the
first place? Why was he there in the first place? And yet God
saw him righteous, not because of what he did. I think he's
a picture of someone who believes and by their decisions puts themselves
in a bad place. Bad things happen, but God delivered
him even out of that situation. Even as disobedient as a lot
of the decisions he made were, God delivered him. It mattered,
but it didn't count. How can David, the psalmist,
King David, be called a man after God's own heart? He was an adulterer. He was a man who had the husband
of the woman he committed adultery with killed in battle because
he had the power to do it. How was he a man after God's
own heart? Because God made him a man after his own heart. God
gave him repentance. When he was told, you are the
man, when the story was related about the poor farmer with one
lamb and the man with, I forget how many sheep, and one little
lamb was taken and sacrificed, Nathan told him, you are That
man and when he saw it, he he repented and you read the Psalms
and for the reason the Psalms are so comforting to us. Is there
so real to life? I think there is a. Religion. And in my background is I was
raised Roman Catholic. And as a new believer fairly
early on, I got involved with. Kind of kin to the fundamentalist
Baptist that Joe was involved with early on. And there's an
air of invincibility that they like to have, you know. Standing
on the promises, right? And, you know, we're marching
to Zion. Those are all great songs, but the way they took
them is we're doing it, not God is doing it, and he's bringing
us along. Well, in the New Testament, if
you need some New Testament references that are similar to the admonitions
here in the Old Testament, 2 Corinthians 6.14, don't be yoked together
with unbelievers. What does that mean? Well, you
can't leave the world. I mean, I work for a company
and everything I say is my own personal opinion. It has nothing
to do with my company's opinion. Disclaimer there. But it should
be, their opinion, by the way. There are a lot of unbelieving
people. I mean, they'll say, I don't believe any of that stuff,
Bernie. I don't know how you can believe
that. But what he's talking about is in religious things and spiritual
things, don't be yoked together with unbelievers. And you think,
why would that happen? Well, you'd be surprised how
often In order to gather a crowd, a church will do something like
that where they'll say, we just want to get them in. And then
once we get them in, then we'll evangelize them. Well, good luck with that is all I
can say, especially if you're not preaching the gospel or teaching
it on a regular basis. And some of them never do. So
yoking together with unbelievers in spiritual endeavors is definitely
wrong. Marriage is probably the primary
one in mind, primarily in mind for that. But even when it comes
to churches, and I find it interesting, 1 John, John really has an emphasis
in his gospels and in his epistles on love. But the very last verse
of 1 John, he says, little children, Keep yourself from idols. Now,
we might think, well, I don't have a Buddha shrine. I don't
burn incense or do anything like that. But we have our own idols,
right? Our own idols might be a certain
performance or a monetary thing or whatever. I'm not going to
even try to name all of them off. If you have an idol, you
may or may not know it. God will show it to you if you're
one of his children. because that'll be the place
that he will challenge you on at one point or another if you're
his. But it's important to understand if you are a child of God by
God's grace, it matters if you get mixed up in these things,
but it doesn't count. God isn't gonna get you to get
you and say, sorry, I said salvation was through Christ, but there
was this, hidden contingency clause. No, that's not the case.
But it does matter when it comes to living the Christian life.
Tim James wrote, though our blessings are solely by grace, the enjoyment
of them is dependent upon our looking continually or cleaving
to Christ. The words of verses 13 and 15
through 16 set forth the principle of chastisement often in ployed
by our loving Father. Notice what the Lord says. If
you would desire a mixture of the false and true, God may let
you have it and send leanness to your soul. Love to God will
prevent this while we act in love, but lack of love to God
will surely bring about the worst possible scenario. Well, that's the downside. But
what should you do in God's grace? And I didn't collaborate on a
rock of ages, but a very appropriate simply to that cross I cling. And part of the reason I use
the ESV is it uses that word cling. And it makes that contrast. Either you cling to God or you
cling to false idols. Who are you running to? What
are you looking to, to protect you and to sustain you? I was talking to Bonnie a little
bit this week and she was relating how one of her children, I won't
embarrass which one, but I'm sure that child knows, had a
habit when she was doing housework of clinging on to her, like holding
on, wouldn't let go. What was her clinging? To mom
keeping her safe, no. It was the fact that mom was
able to do what was needed that kept her safe. And the same thing
is true. Don't look at the doing here
as what's meritorious. In fact, a lot of times in fundamentalism,
that was the big thing is like these seven steps, the 12 steps
to victory in the Christian life or whatever the case may be.
No. One thing you need to do, it's cling to Christ, because
he is the only one that can deliver you. And by clinging, what he
means is that you need to hold fast. You need to look to nothing
else when it comes to your deliverance by God from this world. Now, Horatius Bonar actually
wrote a hymn, a lot of hymns, But he also did poetry, and a
more modern rendition of one of his poems was done as a musical
piece. But this was never a hymn. I
don't know why. I didn't look into it. But it's
a great hymn, and I think it says everything I want to say
in this section. If you haven't seen it before,
you can find it online. There's a link, I believe, on
our page to it. Cling to the crucified, his death
is life to thee, life for eternity. His pains thy pardon seal, his
stripes thy bruises heal. His cross proclaims thy peace,
bids every sorrow cease. His blood is all to thee, it
purges thee from sin, it sets thy spirit free. It keeps thy
conscience clean. Cling to the crucified. Cling
to the crucified. His is a heart of love, full
as the hearts above. Its depths of sympathy are all
awake for thee. His countenance is light, even
to the darkest night. That love shall never change.
That light shall never go dim. Charge thou thy faithless heart
to find all, it's all in Him. Cling to the crucified. And I
think that's a very mature look at what the Christian life is. He doesn't dress it up and say,
every day in every way, I'm getting better and better. Last year,
I read through the Bible once. This year, I read through it
twice on my knees. in the gravel, right? There are
people who make a performance of that, but what the writer
here says is that you need to cling to God. If we look back in our text,
verse six, he says, be strong and be careful to obey all that
is written in the book of the law of Moses. And people are
like, aha, the 10 commandments. But that's not our charge as
New Testament Christians. Our only law is the law of Christ
and the law of love. And it's interesting because
he intimates that here as well. He says, be very careful in verse
11 to love the Lord your God and hold fast to him or cling
to him as you have until now. So the heart of God's instruction
to his people of all time is to be right with him, is to cling
to Christ. They didn't know his name, they
knew, even Job, probably the oldest written book of the Old
Testament, even Job knew, I know my Redeemer lives and with these
eyes, I will see him, right? I will see him with my own eyes. But when we think about what
we should do, what we should do should be driven by our lack
of trust in our own faculties, in our own doings. And what we
should do should be driven by trusting in God and love for
others that Christ gives us. And I'm quoting Tim James here
because I love a lot of what he had to say here. But he says about this section,
herein lies the crux of the matter. No other instruction than this
is needed. No other instruction is useful
and no other will follow. My heart is fixed, O Lord, on
thee. What will sustain you as you sojourn in this God hating
world? Will you look to your righteousness?
Will you cling to your works? Will you put stock in your confession? Paul told Timothy to lay hold
of eternal life. Cleave, latch on, be glued to
the Lord, your God, and where he goes, you will always be with
him. I am thankful that he will never
leave us. nor forsake us, but as for me,
I want to be where he is, and the only way to do so is to cleave
to him." And then he points out that the word that is translated
cleave in the ESV, and I think it's hold fast in our translations,
is in the imperfect tense, meaning that it's a continuous action
that intimates the idea of holding on for dear life. And that really
is how we need to look at things. How often do we get led astray
by thinking, I have this. I don't need to rely on God right
now. I've got this in my own strength.
Well, scripture reminds us again and again, and hopefully you
see again here in Joshua that our only hope is first to look
back at how good God has been, both historically in scripture,
but also in our own histories, if we are one of God's children. And then to be reminded that
getting distracted, getting pulled away by the things of the world
can yield some negative consequences, but that the answer to that is
when our faithless heart, when our unbelief inevitably draws
us away from where we need to be, that we realize there's one
that we can cling to, one whose love will never change, whose
light never grows dim, and that is Christ. We need to cling as the hymn
writer, the poem says, cling to the crucified. Well, before
we have Eric come up here and close, just one other section
of scripture that I thought of is helpful at this point. Romans 16, you can turn there
or just listen as I read a couple of verses here. Romans 16, 25,
now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation
of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery
hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through
the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so
that all nations might believe and obey him. To the only wise
God, be glory forever through Jesus Christ. Amen.