Let's read this last section
beginning at verse 30. This is after the victory at
the city of Ai. Joshua 8 verse 30, Then Joshua
built on Mount Ebal an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel,
as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the Israelites. He built it according to what
is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut
stones on which no iron tool had been used. On it, they offered
to the Lord burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings. There in the presence of the
Israelites, Joshua copied on stones the law of Moses, which
he, that is Moses, had written. All Israel, aliens and citizens
alike, with their elders, officials, and judges, were standing on
both sides of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, facing
those who carried it, the priests who were Levites. Half of the
people stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front
of Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had formerly
commanded when he gave instructions to bless the people of Israel.
Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law, the blessings
and the curses, just as it is written in the book of the law,
There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua
did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women
and children and the aliens who lived among them. Now, this final
part of Joshua chapter eight records for us the proper actions
of the people of God after the victory that the Lord had accomplished
for them. Now, we read of the victories
of the armies of Israel, but just as Paul said with regard
to us, thanks be to God who gives us the victory, the real victory
in anything. that we might count ourselves
victorious. It was not us who won the victory. That is, it was not by our strength,
by our doing, that the victory was won. It was won by God, and
then He gives us that victory. And that was what was done here.
It was first done there at Jericho, then at Ai. And what is the proper
response to the victory which has been given to us. Well, it's
this act of worship. Now we see in this story the
nature and incentive for worship. True worship is from a heart
of thanksgiving. It's done not to gain something
from the Lord, It's done in response to what we have already received
from the Lord. Now I realize that there are
forms of worship, and the Bible would call them worship. In fact, I know this is true in the New
Testament, I'm not sure in the Old Testament, but in the Greek
of the New Testament, the word for worship, there's more than
one, but one of them simply means to bow down in front of. In fact,
it pictures the way, if you've got a good dog anyway, if you've
got a good dog and you come up to that dog, it'll be so happy,
it'll have its front down on the ground and its back up in
the air and its tail wagging and everything like that. And
that word for worship is actually the word that means to or in
favor of, that kind of thing, and then the word for dog. So
the way a dog is toward its master, so is worship. But you can tell
by the attitude of a dog, you know, that, I mean, you know,
when a dog is in that position, it truly is a position of submission,
but it's also a position of joy and happiness at seeing the master. Now, we can't say there's no
worship without that. There is a kind of worship, even
of the unbelieving world, when they take notice of the things
of God. It's not the kind of worship
that God is looking for. According to the Lord Jesus Christ,
God seeks those who worship Him in spirit. That means it comes
from the heart. It's something that's prompted
by the Spirit of God and then flows from the heart of someone
who's been born again by the Spirit of God. It comes from
the heart. It's true. And that can mean, again, there's
two applications of that, and both of them are true. And I
can't say for sure just which one the Lord was referring to,
but it can mean they worship sincerely. It's not, you know,
now it's Sunday, I guess we've got to go to worship. You know,
I better go to church because people are going to notice if
I'm not there and then they're going to wonder where I was and
look sideways at me. That kind of worship, God's not
interested in that. You're worshiping men when you
do that. He wants something honest and from the heart. That's why
I've made the remark. It's kind of broad, I guess,
and needs some qualification, but if you don't want to come
to church, don't. Now, I mean by that, if your
presence at church is simply out of a feeling of responsibility
or a feeling that if I go to church regularly, God will be
pleased with me, I'm sorry, that's not worship from the heart. That's
merely working your job. Worship is that which flows from
the heart, it's sincere, or, when the Lord said He worshipped
in spirit and truth, means you worship according to the truth.
Which would, in general, mean that you're worshipping God through
Christ. You're worshipping God on the
basis of what Christ has done. Now, true worship is from a heart
of thanksgiving. We don't worship to gain something,
we worship because of what we have already gotten from God. We offer what the Bible calls
in Hebrews 13 verse 5, and it wouldn't hurt to turn over there
if you want, Hebrews chapter 13 verse 15. Hebrews 13 verse 15 says, Through
Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise,
the fruit of lips that confess His name. Now, what is His name? Well, for us, His name is Jesus. And what does that name mean?
Well, it says, You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sin. The name Jesus is a combination
of the name Jehovah and the word for salvation in Hebrew. So Jehovah saves. That is our God. And that's the
reason we worship Him. That's the reason we worship
Him in that name. If He didn't save, I wouldn't
say we don't have a reason to worship Him. He's God. That's
reason enough to worship Him, isn't it? He's God. That makes
Him worthy of worship. But certainly, worshiping Him
would be of no value to us were it not that He is our God and
He's revealed Himself to us in that name, Jesus, Jehovah saves. Therefore, we've got something
to give Him thanks for. were we to try to worship Him
through law? It would be like we said in last
week's Sunday message, you know, there in the book of Hebrews,
it says, you've not come to a mountain that can be touched, where there's
darkness and storm and lightning and all that. What happens if
you try to worship God through the law? Well, right there, God
had told Moses, you tell them, if anything touches this mountain,
whether it's a human being or an animal or whatever, kill it!
And anyone who attempts to approach God through that mountain dies. But we don't worship God through
law. We worship God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, in whom is embodied all of the grace and mercy of
God towards his elect. Through him, says Peter, do we
believe in God. Now the devils believe in God
through law. Not the law at Mount Sinai, I
understand that. But I mean, they believe, James says, they
believe there's a God. So if you believe there's a God,
you have risen to the level of demonic theology. Because they
believe there's a God. And they tremble. They tremble
at the thought of Him. But does He delight in their
worship? No. Will their worship gain them
access into His blessedness? No. They tremble at the thought of
Him because they know that they are in rebellion against Him.
They rebelled, they sinned, and there's nothing they can do about
it. You know, for them, no Savior was made. You know, people that
don't like election, don't like it that God chose some people
and not others. Why didn't He choose them? Well,
I can give you thousands of reasons why He didn't choose some people. What surprises me is He chose
anybody. But it's funny that they get upset that God chose
some humans and not other humans, but they're not at all upset
that God didn't choose any of the fallen angels, did not provide
a Redeemer for any of them. But they have no reason to worship
God like you and I do. All the elements of worship have
to do with the Lord Jesus Christ. All the things that we read there
in Joshua that show how they approached God in worship, all
of them picture Christ. He is our altar. In Hebrews it says, we have an
altar. whereof they have no right to
eat, who serve in the tabernacle or the temple. All those of the
old covenant, and remember when I say of the old covenant, I
mean that they are trying to secure the blessings of God by
obedience to that old covenant. Do you realize that believers
honest believers, and there's always been a remnant according
to the election of grace. But when you read Jewish histories
in the Bible, don't think that you're reading the historical
account of a nation made of people most of whom believed God. No,
Israel was just like broad Christendom is this day. It was full of people
who said they worshiped Jehovah, but their worship was, as one
person put it, from the teeth out. That's all there was to
it. It was in what they said. It was in their outward action.
There was nothing of the heart. But that remnant who actually
did believe, do you realize they were believers in the same sense
you and I are? They were believers in the same
sense Abraham was. Remember, it was written, Abraham
believed God, and God credited it to him unto righteousness,
which is a long way of saying God justified him through faith. No one's ever been justified
any other way except our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, our Lord Jesus
and his humanity did believe God. But he was justified, he's
the only one who could ever be justified because he actually
did what was right all the time, perfectly. Therefore, God could
declare him righteous by looking right at him. You and me, not
so much. But when we believe God, we're
looking to Christ. We're looking to God and His
promises. And that's what Abraham was doing.
Abraham heard the promises of God. He was looking forward to
a time when they would be fulfilled. You and I, we've heard the promises
of God. We've got a record of how they
were fulfilled. But we're looking at the same thing Abraham was.
We're just looking with clearer eyes than he did. Same thing with all the believing
Jews. And here's the point all of that was leading up to. Believing
Jews were not under the law any more than you and I in New Testament
days. Because to be under the law means
to have your blessedness before God determined by how well you
obey the law. And seeing that God only has
two standards, pass, fail. And past means perfection. Anything
short of perfection is a failure. That's why everyone under the
law is under a curse. Because nobody's past. And when
Paul says, you are no longer under law but under grace, he's
pointing out you can't be under both at the same time. And if
you're under law, you'll die. If you're under grace, you live.
Consequently, we must conclude that even those who lived in
old covenant times and were outwardly responsible to fulfilling the
laws that were written, moral, civil, ceremonial, all of that,
yet their blessedness in the presence of God was not determined
by their obedience to it. But, our Lord Jesus is the altar. Only believers have a right,
Paul says, to eat at that altar. Why did he say that? Well, see,
priests ate the meat that was left over from sacrifices. So
they ate from the altar. We, believers in our Lord Jesus
Christ, What do they say of Him in heaven? Blessed art thou,
for thou hast redeemed us by thy blood out of every kindred,
tongue, tribe, and nation, and made us a kingdom and priests
unto our God. Now once I got in trouble, I
was arguing with, I say got in trouble, had to qualify my remarks. I said, there are no priests
in the church. And someone brought that up, you know, we're all
priests. I said, okay, there's no special priest class in the
church. We are all priests. Isn't that good to know? There's
nobody on earth through whom you must go to approach God. Nobody. I think one of the dangers,
you know, I was raised up in free willism, and they had those
invitations at their, well, every Sunday. Every time they preached,
there was an invitation of some sort at the end. People would
come down front, and we had what was called a visitation minister,
but he was also, you know, considered kind of a, oh, he was a fisherman
of the church. He was the one that they wanted
to go out and get converts, you know, and fill up the church.
So he would come down front and stand there. They'd tell you
to come down front. Well, in all practical reality,
what you're doing, you're coming down to this man. And when someone
would come down, and he had all the subtlety of a tornado, you
know, like that, and he was doing that to someone in the congregation
who had been kind of appointed to, you know, a personal worker,
they call it, and they go off into a side room. Brother Scott Richardson used
to say, come to Christ, but don't move a muscle. Worshipping God, coming to Christ,
these are spiritual things. They're not done in the flesh.
We don't come to God through anyone walking the earth today.
There's one God and one mediator between God and man, the man
Christ Jesus. All worship is through Him. and Him alone. Christ is the
ark of the covenant. He is the priest, the high priest,
and He is the sacrifice. He is the subject and object
of worship. Worshiping God is not about fun
or feelings. It is about giving God the honor
that is due His name. because of what great things
he has done in grace and mercy toward his people. That's why
we worship him. That's our motivation in worship,
and certainly that makes him worthy above all other gods claimed
by men to be worshipped. But the prophets say, who is
a pardoning God like you? Now, exactly when these events
happened, we don't know. Bible histories are not necessarily
written in chronological order because they were not designed
to satisfy our historical curiosity. They were written in what I call
a spiritual order. That is, the various stories
that make up the histories, they were put where they were because
the point that that story teaches, it was important that it be taught
right there. So why is this act of worship,
which actually was conducted far to the north of where the
Israelites came in to the land of Israel, and quite a bit farther
north than where this battle they had just fought? Except
people debate, well, this was right after they came into the
land. Well, it's surprising it wasn't mentioned then. And some
Jews say, well, this was seven years later. Well, there's five. Doesn't matter. The reason it
was recorded right here is because they had, you think of the events
that have just happened. They'd gone in, they'd taken
Jericho, it had gone off without a hitch. They went to take AI
and got defeated. found out it was because someone
within the camp had, with high-handed rebellion against God, taken
something that belonged especially to the Lord. That issue was taken
care of. Then they went back to A.I.,
and they approached A.I., exactly as the Lord told them, and once
again, everything went off without a hitch. Now, lesson learned,
what should we do? Give thanks to God. We came into the land, and if
you remember, they came into the land just like Gentiles. Remember
the first thing they did when they got on the other side? Circumcised
all the men. Because they hadn't been doing
that for that whole time, wandering in the wilderness. So they came
in without any indication or mark that they were the people
of God. They came in by way of the Ark of the Covenant right
there in the midst of the river, holding back the waters. They
came in, they celebrated the Passover, several things there.
Everything seems to be going well. Attack Jericho, good. Attack Aon, whoops. And you can
imagine, once they found out what had happened, they were
thinking, there's no way to come back from this. We have offended
the Lord who was good to us. The Lord said, deal with it. Deal with what's happened. And
they did. They utterly purged. Symbolically,
the sin in the camp. Achan's family, his household,
everything he owned, everybody, destroyed. No longer a part of
Israel. Just as the Lord, through Christ
Jesus, has destroyed our sin. It's gone. Go to Ai, and they win Ai with
as little effort as they won Jericho. Therefore, what an occasion
for thanksgiving. How many times, friends, have
you thought that you have sinned yourself out of the grace of
God? How often have we done something that makes us feel utterly unworthy
of any of God's goodness? And not just, you know, in that
we understand that theologically we've sinned against God, but
I mean, we just, we think, okay, I know God's gracious, but I
mean, this is, this goes on and on and on. And I find myself
to be still such a rebel. No way he's gonna keep, I have
surely worn out his patience. And we find, no. That Paul was
right when he said, where sin did abound, grace did much more
abound. Well, how often does that happen
with you, preacher? Well, at least every week. Because
I always think, why in the world am I in this pulpit? Even if
I can accept, okay, I haven't lost my salvation, so to speak,
but surely God will not bless my preaching, me being the kind
of person I am. Well, thanks be to God. Here's I can tell He does bless
the preaching. The first thing to be noted about
this worship, it's according, it's done in obedience to the
command of God. He had told them back in Deuteronomy,
through Moses, that once they entered the land, he said, thou
shalt put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim and the curse upon Mount
Ebal. Now, true worship, all true worship,
to be pleasing to God, it must be voluntary. It must be done
gladly. In the Psalms it says, serve,
which, now this is in the King James. It's where most of my
Bible memorization is. Serve the Lord with gladness.
But that word serve meant worship. That's what he's talking about,
worshiping God. Worship the Lord with gladness.
Now, there are many things I like about gathering here for worship. I was thinking about this before
the service. This congregation, it's my family. You know, I'm
not from here. I don't have any natural roots
here. And our natural fruits went back
down south. Our children aren't here. Bonnie
and me. So natural connections. We don't
have any, and being that I'm a pastor of a congregation, I've
not really established natural friendships in this area, because
everybody else is pretty well already networked into their
church and family. That's okay, I'm not saying that
to complain, I'm just saying there hasn't been a basis. to
establish what we consider common friendships. You all are it.
So sure, I love coming here on Sundays because I get to see
the people who are part of my group, or the group that I am
a part of. But I don't think I would enjoy
it so much if it were not that we are gathering here to worship
the Lord. I enjoy visiting everybody in
this church. I enjoy time with them. But these
gatherings, aren't they wonderful? When the Lord is pleased to open
up, well, to speak and then unstop these ears so that we hear what
he has to say and believe it in our heart. We're glad to be
here. Worship is loving obedience from
a thankful heart. It's not the service of a slave
who fears what the master will say if he doesn't do it. It is
the activity of sons who love to
be in their father's household. Now the specifics of this altar
represent Christ and the fact that the work of salvation and
therefore the praise for salvation belongs only to Him. This altar that was made according
to the command of God was made an altar of whole stones over
which no man has lifted up any iron. They weren't, you know,
used nice squared off stones, just however they came
out of the ground, just stack them up. What's that about? Nothing
of us, nothing of our efforts, nothing of our will, nothing
of our goodness, righteousness, nothing has anything to do with
this altar. You know, that is the most difficult
aspect of the gospel, I believe, for people to comprehend. And even we believers wrestle
with it, don't we? Here we are gathered together
and I, as the one who does 95% of the preaching and teaching
here or whatever, yes, I should study, I should prepare, I shouldn't
just go up here and wing it. But I also know this, it will
not be my preparation, my prayers or anything else that does you
any good. Whatever is accomplished here,
it's whole stones stacked up It's all the work of the Lord. His work was done entirely by
Him. It says in the Old Testament,
I have tread in the winepress of the wrath of God alone. In the scriptures, when our Lord
gave this command about an altar made of stones, he says, if you
lift up any tool upon it, you have polluted it. That's exactly
why Paul said, if you be circumcised, Christ profits you nothing. That would be to lift up a tool
upon what God does. This altar is a place for sacrifice. Note that the sacrifices to be
made were a sin offering and a fellowship or peace offering
as it's traditionally known. And the order is good to note. Sin offering first. Then, fellowship
offering. Why? There can be no worship,
no contact, no fellowship or peace between sinners and God
until the sin issue has been handled. And you know, that's true objectively. God cannot bless us. He's a just
God. He cannot bless us unless the
sin issue is taken care of. God can't bless us, God cannot
approach us, and we dare not approach Him until the sin issue
is settled. And also, subjectively, and by
this I mean in our own experience, we cannot truly enter into worship
of God until the sin issue has been cleared up in our minds. Now don't get me wrong, if you
feel guilt upon your conscience, you come here for worship, and
what will likely happen, if you're the Lord's, He's going to take
something from the Scriptures and settle that sin issue in
your heart, and you'll be able to open your heart in worship
and thanksgiving to Him. But understand this, God, is
not acceptably worshipped on any other foundation than this,
that though I am a sinner, Christ has taken away my sin, and I
stand approved, accepted, loved, and blessed by God, because in
Christ, I have no sin. That's the foundation of worship. I do want to get this done, so
give me just a couple minutes here. The way this is pictured,
it's between Mount Ebel and Mount Gerizim. Mount Ebel, some say it means bald, and what's
interesting, and that's where the curses were supposed to come
from, and Golgotha, of the things it can mean. The
Bible says it means the skull, but some said it also could refer
to the bald. And so Mount Gerizim, where the
curses were, corresponds to Calvary. And what happened at Calvary?
Well, as they put that crown of thorns on Him, what do thorns
represent? That's the curse. Instead of fruitful plants, Thorns
and thistles will grow out of the ground. So the curse was
laid on Christ. He was made a curse for us. And
so the curse on Mount Ebal. Gerizim means cut off. Messiah
will be cut off. So you have actually in both
of those mountains, you have a picture of Calvary. The curse laid on Christ. Then
over here, Christ cut off because of the curse. But Mount Gerizim
is where the blessings were to be given. Here's the interesting
thing. In Deuteronomy, when that was
first mentioned, the only thing that was mentioned was the curses. The curses. But now, in between
those two valleys, stands Joshua. And that law has been written
on plastered stones, not the stones the altar was made of.
This was another stack of stones that had been plastered and the
law was written on it. Joshua, whose name is the same as Jesus.
Joshua the Savior. Joshua's there. The Ark of the
Covenant's there in the middle. The law's there. People. Six tribes on each side. And
I thought this was interesting. Both the citizens and the aliens. Who's that? That's us. The non-Jews. See how even in the Old Testament,
there was the foreshadowing of the ingathering of the Gentiles? And through their ingathering,
according to Romans 11, all Israel shall be saved. Because not all
who are of natural Israel are of spiritual Israel. So the Gentiles were represented.
And then he says, and the women and the children. In Christ there
is neither male nor female, young or old. All there. And Joshua read everything
that was in the law. You know, when we say that we're
not under the law, those who for some reason are attracted
to that law like a moth to a flame, they claim that we're promoting
lasciviousness. We're not. One thing is they don't understand
that law. And when we say we're under the law, we don't mean
that we don't have law. The New Covenant has some law.
And it's far better law than was ever written in the Old Covenant.
But when it says the law, it's not just talking about the Ten
Commandments. It's talking about everything that was said in that
entire covenant. And when it talks, you know,
the Bible says, I meditate on my law day and night. Are we
to take it that that fellow just ran through the Ten Commandments
all that, you know? No. Oh, how I love thy law. I don't have a problem with the
Ten Commandments in terms of thinking it's bad law or anything
like that. But if you look at the entirety
of the law, not only its commandments, but especially all of its worship
laws, they point to Christ. Why did the psalmist say, I love
thy law? Because he saw He was a man of faith. He saw this isn't
about me keeping the law. It's proof that I can't do that.
But then a sacrifice has been made in my behalf that clears
me from all my failures. And they understood that that
lamb didn't do it. They knew it was one to come,
the son of David, the seed of the woman, Messiah. The believing Jew under the Old
Covenant was looking at exactly the same thing you and I are
looking. He couldn't see it as clear, but he was looking at
the same thing. He was looking forward, and we're looking backward.
And both of us are looking at exactly what God looks at in
order to justify sinners. Our Lord Jesus Christ. There's
Joshua right in the middle of it all. There are curses from
the law, and there are blessings. Revealed in the law, not given
by the law, but revealed in the law. Revealed in shadowy forms,
but it's there if the Lord gives you eyes to see it. But we live
where God has caused the light to shine, as bright as it ever
will until he comes. Because we've not only seen the
law written in the scriptures, We have a record of it being
fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Everything promised in the law
has been fulfilled. And we're the beneficiaries of
that fulfillment. We've got one minute.