I didn't get a complete vacation
this week. I've got to do this part as well.
But the Sunday school, I have certainly enjoyed the messages
we've heard the last couple of nights. Looking forward to what
we will hear later on this morning. Now before we begin the lesson,
let's ask the Lord's blessing. Lord Jesus, we thank you. the privilege of being here this
morning and we ask that according to your promise you would meet
with us and that your spirit would be
upon us that we can see you with the eye of faith,
we can learn more of you than we have known before, enter into
a deeper understanding, and most of all, that we would learn to
love you more. You have loved us with an everlasting
love. And while we say that we love
you, we love you only because you first loved us. And we confess
that our love is not what it should be. For we are, in our minds, divided
in our affections. But we pray, Lord, that this day, as we learn more of
you and your mercy, our mind will be less divided and more
completely and singularly devoted to you. We pray these things in your
name. Amen. Verse 1, then the Lord said to
Joshua, Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you
and go up and attack AI. For I have delivered into your
hands the king of AI, his people, his city, and his land. You shall do to Ai and its king
as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry
off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush
behind the city." Now, they came up against Jericho. advanced against Jericho according
to the word of the Lord, as the Lord had told them to, and according
to the promise of the Lord, when they circled the city seven times
on the seventh day, and blew the trumpet of Jubilee, and the
shout of the army All of the walls of Jericho fell except
that portion in which Rahab and her family were secured. And they went into the city and
put everyone to the sword and collected all the livestock,
all the plunder, to be delivered into the Lord's treasury. Well,
they killed the livestock and collected the plunder for the
Lord's treasury. But Achan saw that which had
been forbidden to them, the one thing forbidden to them. And
isn't that the case with us? That if all the world were ours
except one thing, that would be the thing we wanted the most. And we would want it simply because
it had been forbidden to us. You know, if you put a child
in a room full of wonderful toys and say, you can play with any
of these toys you want, but not that one, that's the toy they'll
go to first. And we're the same way. But Achan,
in his sin, defied the Lord, defied him not just in the I
hate to act as though any transgression is small, but we know that our
lives are littered with sin all through. But this was a high-handed,
willful act of rebellion against God, taking for himself that
which God had said was specifically for him, that is, for God. And therefore, when Israel went
up against The smaller city of Ai, they were defeated. And I believe it was 36 men lost
their lives. And Joshua was just devastated
and came before the Lord. And in a sense, he was asking, why
did this happen? He knew that there must have
been some kind of sin. to cause them to flee before the army
of Ai, this little town. God revealed what had happened,
and by the Lord's understanding revealed by casting lots, the
lot fell upon Achan, and Joshua said to Achan, glorify the Lord
God, what did you do? And Achan confessed to what he
did, And we may be offended in our modern sensibilities as to
how this sin of Achen was dealt with. But Achen, his wives, it
says his children. I don't know if there was any
little ones involved. The households lived together
for the most part. Children, even when they grew
up, they stayed nearby. And they were considered part
of the household of their parents. But Achan and everything associated
with him, family, tent, valuables, sheep, whatever, they took it
out. They stoned Achan and all his
family and burned everything up, utterly removing him from
any living memorial in Israel. And it says in verse 26 of chapter
7, they heaped up a large pile of rocks which remain to this
day. I mean, several times you'll
find in the book of Joshua it talks about like a pile of rocks
or a memorial which remains to this day. Now, I don't know exactly
when the book of Joshua was written. And I doubt you could go over
there and find a pile of rocks now. But we'll assume some time had
passed enough that the writer thought it was significant to
point out, that pile of rocks is still there, as a memorial
and testimony of the holiness, righteousness, and justice of
God. And even as a warning to believers
that God, by grace, has forgiven our sins. In eternal matters,
they will never be brought up again. But in this life, there
are consequences for sin, some of them quite natural. But when we, particularly when
we do or commit, as the scriptures refer to them, presumptuous sins,
there is a consequence to it. Be not deceived, says Paul, God
is not mocked. Well, you can imagine that even
through all of this now, okay, Achan's gone, every memory, everything
associated with him is gone, but Ai is still standing. And
the Lord has said that they are to destroy every city. And the memory of their defeat,
and I don't know how much time had passed since they had tried
to defeat the city of Ai, their defeat at the hands of the men
of Ai was still fresh in their mind. So the Lord says to Joshua,
do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. Now, I called her brother on
the phone. I said, what's this morning's title? And he said,
why are we discouraged? And I don't know how he's going
to develop that, but I'm going to try not to step on his message
and preach it before he gets a chance to get up here. But
you can imagine how now that all of this is done, and there's
this heap of rocks, a more or less permanent testimony of the
holiness, righteousness, and justice of God, how that we can almost unwittingly
show disregard for the Lord and suffer some horrible consequences
of it. So now what are they going to do? Well, the Lord always
comes with the word that we need. He knows our hearts, doesn't
he? Remember, you know, people talk about unanswered prayers.
And I remember a friend of mine referring to me, or one time,
referring to unprayed answers. We think that just because we
didn't pray about something, the Lord is unaware of our need,
or the fact that it's even on our hearts. And oftentimes, since the Lord
said to Joshua, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, and it
seems like the Lord initiated this conversation, Joshua had
not told the Lord. I'm fearful. I'm discouraged. But the Lord knew, didn't he?
And he came with the needed word. How often do the scriptures say
to us, particularly our Lord Jesus, he would say, fear not. They see him walking on the water,
and they're terrified. Fear not. Fear not. It is good for us to be cautious,
to be careful. As we've seen the last couple
of weeks in 2 Corinthians 10, take heed when you think you
stand, lest you fall. Yet fear, worrisome fear, trembling fear,
that's not supposed to be part of our experience. We are to fear the Lord in the
sense of reverencing Him. There should be a sense of fear
in our hearts of crossing Him and putting Him to the test.
But we need never fear our Father, our God, as though He is out
to destroy us, because He never will. Even if
in his wisdom and goodness, he determines that for the accomplishment
of his will and for the good of our souls, it's best that
we exit this life, even that is not destruction. That is salvation. Fear not. Do not be afraid of
what lies ahead. Yes, AI still stands. But that
which prevented your victory on the former attempt has been
done away. It's gone. It's over. Don't let the memory of past
failure fill your heart with fear about what lies ahead. And he says, do not be discouraged.
Fear discourages us. And I guess, you know, when you
look at that word discouraged, it means to take away courage. Now, there's oftentimes that
we're still in the flesh and we're confronting things and
the flesh is going to react in fear. to what it perceives as
dangerous circumstances. And when I say dangerous, I don't
necessarily mean dangerous to your life, but dangerous to something
you hold dear. Whenever the things that we hold
dear, it looks as though we might lose them. Then, of course, fear
is going to rise up. That's a natural reaction. fear often removes courage. Now there's a difference between
fear and cowardice. In the King James of the Scriptures,
I know in the book of Revelation it says that the fearful will
not be allowed to enter. But that word is not based on
the common word for fear. It's based on the word, a word
for cowardly. Because even as believers, we
face things that are fearful. As someone pointed out, courage
is not the absence of fear. Courage is what causes us to
do what needs to be done, even when it's a fearful thing to
do it. That's courage. And so here he's saying, don't let,
first he says, don't be afraid. But the Lord knows he's going
to say, don't be afraid, and we're still going to be afraid
sometimes. He says, don't be discouraged. Even if fear is
in you, do not act in cowardice and back away from the challenge
set before you. Now, these first two words, you
know, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, they are given
to build us up. But now he's going to begin to
correct some of the mistake they made in going to AI. He says, take the whole army
with you. Now, if you remember back in
chapter 7, they're flush with the victory at Jericho. Of course,
nobody but Achan knew until this point what sin had been committed
against the Lord. But they're all thinking, look
at that. We took that whole army to Jericho, and all we did is
march around it, blow our trumpets, and shout, and the walls fell.
And this little city, Ai, We don't need to send all of us
over there. It's a little city. And they
only sent a portion of the army. Now that's not altogether why
they were defeated, but you see that not only in Israel was there
Achan's presumptive, willful, rebellious sin, there was a sort
of cockiness on their part. Instead of saying to themselves
as they should have, we marched around the city, we blew the
trumpet, we gave the shout, and the walls came down, which means
obviously nothing of our power was involved in taking Jericho. The Lord did it. So we better
get the whole army together to go to AI. They said, if we can
take Jericho, big city Jericho, with the whole army, We'll just
send a handful of us, a representative force, and take that city. And the Lord says to him, take
the whole army. Now, I'll tell you what I see
in this. We believe that we are saved
by grace. And we believe it, because that's
what God says. And that's what our experience
tells us must be the method, or there will be no salvation. And we say to ourselves, or because
we're yet in the flesh, seeing such a great thing accomplished
with no effort on our part, why should we throw our whole heart
into the pursuit of Christ for the remainder of our life. Well, if all my sins were put
away with nothing on my part, why
should I throw myself into, as Paul said, that I may know him
and the power of his resurrection? Why should I press on with every
ounce of energy You know, there's a scripture in the King James that says,
the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take
it by force. And probably when the King James was translated,
people understood what that meant. But we scratch our heads thinking
about that. But what our Lord was saying
is all of God's blessings, the entire kingdom of heaven, kingdom
of God, you enter it by grace, nothing that you do gains you
the entry into it. But because of what you are by
nature and because of the world you live in, it won't be easy. Now we know, well, let me put
it this way, we enter the kingdom of heaven on purpose. Nobody ever entered the kingdom
of God who wasn't determined to get in. Now we know where
that determination came from. And that's why we can still say
it's all of grace. Nonetheless, you know, sometimes
we look in the Bible and the Bible teaches us doctrine and
reality as it's seen from God's viewpoint. At other times, it
reveals the same things as we see and experience them in our
lives lived out in time and space. all the struggles people go through
in this matter of entering the kingdom of God. And those who are not determined
to enter don't because something will come up and interfere and
it will be enough to turn them away. This is part of what we've been
talking about the last couple of weeks when it says, take heed
when you stand, lest you fall. And we've pointed out, you know,
that people make a profession of faith and we always take people's
word for it. I mean, how would we know if
they say they believe? If they've listened to what we
preach and it's, that's what I believe. I, I confess Christ. We're not
going to say, well, you know, you come here on Thursday, I
got a list of questions I want to ask you. We just take their
word for it. But we have seen people say they
believe and see them, as it were, entering the kingdom of God or
whatever, but something happens, something comes up, some distraction. whether it be a distraction of
trial, the circumstances of life, or they see another form of religion
that's got shinier baubles and stuff than we have to offer.
And they go off to that, or they go off to this. And we look,
don't we? And sometimes we're stunned.
I didn't see that coming. But here's what it should say
to us. Don't ever approach The pursuit of Christ, the worship
of God, the knowledge of him, and by this I mean the personal
knowledge of him. Don't ever come at it half-hearted. Take the whole army. And this is what you'll find
out. Even though you take the whole
army, every victory you get will be handed to you by grace. But
if you go there with half the army, you're likely, the Lord's
going to say, OK, I'll show you what happens when you pursue
me lukewarm with half your heart, when you become like the church
at Laodicea. He said, I'll just back up and
let you show, let you be reminded of just what you are. We have many promises in which
we rest. And we can, we may rest in them. We must rest in them. And at
the same time, as our Lord said to the devil, remember the devil
brought up one of God's promises to him and tempted him. He said,
cast yourself off the temple here. Yeah, that's a big drop,
it'll kill you. Except, is it not written? that he shall give his angels
guard over you, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Well,
if he's not going to let you stub your toe, certainly he won't
let you splat on the ground. And you know what? That was true.
But you know what the Lord said? It's also written, don't put
the Lord to the test. The Lord says he'll forgive all
our sins, and he will, absolutely. We should not therefore say,
well, if he's gonna forgive them all, whoopee, let's party. You
say, I'd never think that. Don't say that either. Don't ever think there's something
you wouldn't do. if God didn't just step back
a little. Peter, I'll never deny you. I
suppose by then it's already evening. Before the sun comes
up, Peter, you will deny me three times. Once, to what was probably
about a 12-year-old girl. Big, fisherman, strong Peter. Little girl says, Well, you're
one of his disciples, aren't you? No, no, I don't know him. Take the whole army. Paul said,
put on the whole armor of God. Now, I got this. All I need is my sword today.
Be careful. Be careful. Take the whole army
with you, and go up and attack Ai. Notice that our Lord did not
decrease in any way that which they had previously been told
to do. He didn't say, well, AI's small,
but in order to build you up a little bit, there's an even
smaller town over there. Let's go over and take that one.
That'll make you feel better about yourself. And then we can
build up to AI and then go on to bigger cities. He said, no,
you failed at AI, but you didn't fail Your failure did not come
because of any lack of strength in your army, because it was
never the strength of your army that was at issue. It was your half-heartedness
and the sin of Aitken. The sin's been taken care of.
And now I tell you, take your whole army. Forget this halfway
business. Take the whole army and go to
AI. And then here's why. And here is what is to give them
confidence. For I have delivered into your
hands the king of AI, his people, his city, his land. Now, we get to thinking backwards.
We'd say, well, you know, the Lord's got this. Why should I
put my whole heart into it? We put our whole heart into it
because God has got this. We gather the whole army, and
we advance forward, even into things that once before defeated
us. And we do this. Because the Lord
has said, I'm giving it to you. I'm giving it to you. You know, at one point, and I
can't remember the particular text of scripture, but Paul talks
about this is yours, this is yours. And he says, death is
yours. What? The Lord says, I've given
death into your hands. It's king, it's people. It's
in your hands. Go and take it. Take death? Yes. The last enemy that shall
be defeated is death. And brethren, we will. We will. If you are in Christ, the day
will come when you approach your own individual death. March right
into it. Don't hold back. But it's such
a big enemy. Yes, but you have a very big
God who has said, I have delivered it into your hands. And if he's
delivered death into your hands, that it need not be a fear to
you. And can anything in life prove an overthrow if you face
it with your whole heart in the confidence of the promise of
the Lord? All right, you're dismissed until
the regular service.