Let's open our Bibles to the
book of Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. We're going
to be looking at verse 30. That's kind of going to be our
launch pad this morning. And I will probably divide this
message into two parts for several reasons. There's a There's so
much as we, as you followed Brother Mark as he read Joshua chapter
six. There's so much there that is
a picture and a type of gospel truth as it is found in the Lord
Jesus Christ. You know, Joshua, Joshua is a
type of Christ. Even his name speaks that. The
Old Testament Hebrew name of Joshua was Yeshua, which means
salvation. It was the same word, basically,
the same base word that Moses used when he stood as we looked
upon it last week concerning the parting
of the Red Sea. when the Hebrew children were
standing on the shore and Pharaoh's army about to come down on them
to destroy them. They complained in their unbelief
and in their doubts and in their fear of men. Remember Moses said,
stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. That word salvation
is the base word for the name Joshua, Yeshua. It's a picture
of Christ. and salvation by the grace of
God. I mentioned in our Bible study
earlier, I said, you know, they say Joshua fit the battle of
Jericho, and I made a statement, I said, Joshua didn't fit the
battle of anything. God fought that battle. Now don't
get me wrong, Joshua had a part in it. He was God's instrument,
especially after the walls came down and he went into the city.
They destroyed the people of Jericho. That was God's just
wrath upon that nation for their insolence, their rejection, their
unbelief, their idolatry. But there's so much here in that. Verse 30 of Hebrews 11, by faith
the walls of Jericho fell down. That's by revelation, by promise,
by the power of God, they fell down. That's what that's saying.
It wasn't the power of Joshua or the Hebrew children's faith
that brought the walls down. It was God's word, God's power. Now, did Joshua have faith in
God? Yes, he did, and that's a gift
from God. I've often said, if you're a
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you need to understand you didn't
come by that naturally. There was no goodness or disposition
of will that caused you to be that way. It was totally a work
of God. Even believing is a work of God.
For by grace are you saved, through faith, that not of yourselves
is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast, we
are his workmanship. That's what a believer is. Created
in Christ Jesus, unto, not because of, but unto good works, which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. And so
here in verse 30, by faith the walls of Jericho fell down after
they were compassed or surrounded about seven days. You notice
in Mark's reading of Joshua 6, how they marched around six days.
God created the world in six days. That's the work, you see. And then on the seventh day,
they marched around seven times. That's the work done. The finished
work, that's a picture of Christ. In His work, He did all the work. And then He's our Sabbath. He finished the work. It's finished.
The work of our salvation. The work of justification based
on His righteousness imputed. When did He finish that on earth?
When He gave up, when He cried, it's finished. It's ended. So our Joshua, The walls of Jericho. Jericho represents everything
that keeps a sinner from entering in to the blessings of salvation. We're going to talk about that.
So, the fall of Jericho. Now, I've entitled this message,
Pulling Down Strongholds, and I read this at our opening, 2
Corinthians chapter 10. The battle of Jericho is also
a picture of the battle of gospel ministry, we might say. And remember
there in 2 Corinthians 10 where Paul wrote, the weapons of our
warfare are not carnal, they're not fleshly, but mighty through
God, and that's key. The might, the power is not of
us, it's of God. through the pulling down of strongholds. That's what happened at Jericho.
A stronghold was pulled down by God so that the people could
enter the blessings of the promised land. And that's what happens
when God saves a sinner. God pulls down the strongholds. He's pulled down several strongholds.
We'll talk about them. But that's why I entitled this
Pulling Down Strongholds. We all have walls of Jericho
naturally. And God pulls down those strongholds
to save us. Well, the fall of Jericho. Jericho,
as I said, represented everything that kept the Hebrews from entering
in and taking possession of the promised land. The land flowing with milk and
honey. Remember how it's called that? It's the walls of Jericho. And I'm not going to go into
all of the The dimensions and everything, you can do that.
Archaeologists have speculated on it, and they're probably pretty
right. But the walls of Jericho were virtually impregnable, especially
by a bunch of nomads who'd been wandering in the wilderness for
40 years. Impossible. In other words, it
represents something that was impossible for them to conquer. Impossible for them to tear down. Impossible for them to enter. And you know, like I said, they
were going into the promised land. Now this was the land of
promise that God had given to Abraham almost 500 years before
this. The promised land, let me say
this, the promised land is not a type of heaven. The Promised
Land is a type of, as I said, all the blessings of salvation
freely given to God's elect by God in Christ and which we who
have been brought to faith in Christ possess right now. All spiritual blessings. Do you
believe that? Ephesians 1.3? Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ." Right now, being in Christ, evidenced by faith
in Him, I have full possession of all the blessings of salvation. Now, some of those blessings
I have not yet realized. For example, I'm not yet perfect
in myself. I'm not yet existing in the glorified
body. I am perfect in Christ. You know,
people have a hard time understanding that, and I understand why they
have a hard time understanding it. It's not natural to the natural
man. In fact, things like that haven't
even entered our minds. 1 Corinthians 2 says, not enter
the heart of man to know these things. This is something that
is so great and fantastic and miraculous that no human being,
be him an Albert Einstein or a Happy Jack from nowhere, has
ever even thought of. And that's this, that if we're
God's people, His spiritual nation. We stand right now as perfect
as we are ever going to be in Christ. Not in ourselves now,
but in Christ. I'm washed in His blood, clothed
in His righteousness. Justified, not guilty, not even
chargeable. I heard a preacher say one time,
we can't be charged, but we're chargeable. What he meant by
that is that we're still sinners, but we're not even chargeable.
Because God charged our sins to Christ. That's who Joshua
represents, typifies. He's the leader of the people. He led them into the promised
land. But we're justified in Christ. We stand in Christ with
his righteousness imputed, charged, accounted to us. Now, we have
the assurance of one day being totally free from the influence
and contamination of sin in ourselves. And that's a blessing we possess
right now, but we haven't realized it yet. It hasn't happened yet. You know, the Hebrew children
there, they were God's people even before they were born, in the sense of the promise made
to Abraham. God said, I'm going to make a
great nation of you. And through you, all nations
will be blessed. You remember that back in Genesis 12, Genesis
15, Genesis 17. This nation had not even been
formed when God, in his purpose, made them a nation. And that's
the way it is with his church, his spiritual nation. God chose
us in Christ before the foundation of the world. That salvation
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. We were
justified in Him. Well, what keeps us? Now, think
about it in our day and concerning ourselves as this applies to
us. What keeps us from entering into the eternal blessedness
of salvation and life? And there's only one thing that
keeps us from doing that, and that's sin. S-I-N. Sin is an enemy. Just like the
walls of Jericho, it was impossible for these Hebrew children. to
conquer Jericho. If they had tried it man's way,
they would have died. Impregnable. Well, that's the
same way in a spiritual sense of our sin. Sin is an enemy that's
impossible for us to defeat. Salvation is a blessing that's
impossible for us to achieve. And every time man tries to do
it his own way, he fails. You can pick the worst ways,
the best ways, and every way in between. It's a failure. It
cannot be done. And as in all of these examples
back here in Hebrews 11, all these examples of saving faith,
we see in the fall of Jericho that the emphasis here is not
on the power of the goodness or the power or the determination
of man in his will or in his works, but the emphasis is on
the goodness, the power and determination of God's will and God's work
according to his promise. My friend, this is all about
Christ. It's the same for us in salvation, both in our justification
and in our sanctification before God. and our sanctification in
new birth even. As I said, Joshua was a type
of Christ and everything that it took to defeat sin for us is found
in the glorious person and finished work of Christ. He's the mighty
conqueror, not you, not me. Christ is. He's the victor. We are victorious and we are
made conquerors, the Bible says, through Him. But He's it. It's all about Him. Christ pulled
down my Jericho. Christ pulled down your Jericho
if you're saved. The stronghold of the law, for
example. That's a big wall of Jericho
for the people of God. The stronghold of the law. How
are we going to be saved unless the justice of God is satisfied? We can't be. And the stronghold
of the law that condemned us in Adam was pulled down by Christ
when He established righteousness for us. Christ also pulls down the stronghold
of darkness that deceives us by giving us spiritual life and
bringing us to believe and rest in Him. You know, we've got a
lot of Jerichos. You know, man's religion is a
wall of Jericho. Do you know that? Spiritually
speaking. It's a fortress that he builds
to protect himself. It's a refuge that he constructs
to hide behind. To say to himself, I'm okay. I'm at peace with God. And that
stronghold, that wall of Jericho, of the heart, cannot be overtaken
and cannot be pulled down by man's religion or philosophy
or psychology or his morality. The heart is deceitful, desperately
wicked. Above all things, who can know
it? The Bible calls the natural heart the stony heart. That's
what the walls of Jericho were made of, stone. And when God
tears that down by the preaching of the gospel and the power of
the Holy Spirit, what does He do? He gives life and He gives
us a new heart that's pliable, bendable, submission to Him. Now back here in Hebrews 11,
it speaks of the walls of Jericho coming down after they were compassed
or surrounded about seven days. Look back at Joshua chapter 6. Here we find back in Joshua 6
how the Hebrew people, after having wandered in the wilderness
for 40 years, they're now ready to enter the promised land. The
question we need to ask, and you know there's a lot of history
before this, there's a lot of history between the Red Sea and
this. And you can read about it. Read
about it, some in the book of Exodus, some in the book of Numbers. The questions that we need to
ask is how and why did they get to this place? And consider this,
now let's, now think about it. Take it all the way back to the
beginning. From the beginning of human history, now here's
how it happened. From the beginning of human history,
God promised, God set forth, declared His promise to send
the Messiah, who is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
the one whom God promised to send. He was revealed first as
the woman seed. He was revealed as the lamb.
the sacrifice, the person and work of Christ. That's what the
gospel's all about, who he is and what he accomplished on Calvary.
But from the beginning of human history, God promised to send
Christ, the Messiah, who because of the nature of his necessary
work, what he had to do for God's chosen people, given him before
the foundation of the world, that he would be in himself both
God and man without sin. That's why he came. He had a work to do. And he had
to be both God and man to do the work. Now I could show you
scripture upon scripture about that, you know it's so. God,
absolutely considered, cannot die. But this person, The Lord Jesus
Christ, who is God, he did die. How? That's attributed to his
humanity. Hebrews 2 tells us about it.
Man cannot create or give life. But this person who is man, without
sin, he did create and he does give life. That's to be attributed
to his deity. I cannot explain all that to
you, but I know it had to be. Now in order for him to satisfy
the justice of God through death and bring about an everlasting
righteousness that would justify the people of God, he had to
come to this earth in human flesh. He had to take upon himself human
flesh. So, God therefore sovereignly
chose a people. through whom Messiah would come
into this world according to the flesh. And you know who he
chose? He chose Abraham and his descendants. He chose Abraham to be the progenitor,
the forbearer of that particular nation through whom the Messiah
would come. Let me ask you this question now. What determined
in God's eternal mind what nation that would be? What determined
that? And I'm going to give you this
answer, and this is the only answer the Bible gives. It was
purely God's sovereign, uninfluenced choice. That's it. Why did He choose Abraham? Was
it because Abraham... Did He look down, as they say
today, now this is the modern theology of today that comes
under the guise of Christianity. Will God look down through the
telescope of time and he foresaw something like Abraham, oh Abraham,
you know Abraham, he's gonna take his only son up on the mountain
and kill, you know. Is that what God did? In fact, that's the very point
that the Apostle Paul is making in Romans chapter 4 when he asks
this question, what can we say about Abraham our father according
to the flesh? In other words, what did Abraham
deserve or earn from God? Why did God choose Abraham and
thus choose Israel through Abraham? Was it because of Abraham's foreseen
goodness? Was it because of Abraham's foreseen
decision? No. Decision? No. It was simply, without any mixture
of cooperation or anything, it was simply God's sovereign choice. That's it. Abraham was a sinner
saved by grace. Abraham was by nature a dead,
spiritually dead, fallen sinner who had to be redeemed just like
any of us, and who had to be justified based upon a righteousness
not his own, but one imputed to him by one whom God sent,
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what Romans 4 teaches.
There was nothing in Abraham, there was nothing about Abraham,
and nothing coming from Abraham to influence God saying, that's
my guy. No, nothing. He just chose him. And you know that's the way it
is with God's elect in salvation, isn't it? Why'd he choose me? Why'd he choose you? It was his
sovereign predestinating choice. It's called the election of what? Grace. And you can't earn grace
and you certainly can't deserve it. It's God's grace. That's
why grace is so marvelous, folks. Marvelous grace. Amazing grace. That's why it's so amazing. There's
nothing in any of us that God looked down through time and
saw. God is not influenced like that. God is not reactionary
like that. God is the first cause of all
things, the scripture says. You say, well, that boggles my
mind. Well, thank God it does. It ought to. Boggles my mind
too. And you know what that shows
us? He's God and we ain't. Pardon my French. We're just
not equipped to handle things like that, except here's what
God says, we're gonna bow to it. That's it. Well, here they
are. What determined? Why God chose
them? Well, he chose Abraham. And through
Abraham came the nation Israel. And all the promises of God to
them through Abraham were unconditional on their part. There's no part
of what God did choosing them through Abraham that God said,
now I'm going to do this if they'll do that. He didn't say it that
way. This had to be because just like
all of us by nature, they are sinful people. For example, let
me give you this. God promised Abraham that his
descendants, through whom the Messiah would come according
to the flesh, would possess and occupy a physical land, the land
of Canaan. That's what they're getting ready
to go into, see? The promised land. But how and
why would they get that land? Did they deserve the land? No. Were they powerful enough to
take the land? Well, obviously not. You read about it in Joshua
chapter 6 there. God gave them the land, brought
them to possess that land and occupy that land, not for their
righteousness or goodness, but because of his unconditional
promise made to Abraham to do what? To send Christ through
that nation. It wasn't because they were a
great nation, they weren't. It wasn't because they were a
numerous nation, because they weren't more numerous than others. When they first came, think about
this, when they first came upon the land to enter it, what happened,
you remember? Now this is recorded, I'll turn to Deuteronomy chapter
nine. Let's look at this one. When
they first came up on land, you remember what happened about
how Moses led them out of Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, gave them
the law from Mount Sinai, and you know what happened there
when Moses came down out of the mountain. Oh, there they were
having a prayer meeting, yes, to a golden calf. Dancing around it like a bunch
of wild people. And then, you know, he brought
them through to the brink of the promised land. You can read
about all that in Numbers 13 and Numbers 14. We won't go there
today. You go to Deuteronomy 9 and you remember what happened
there. They sent spies over and they
came back and there were two reports given. There was a majority
report and then there was a minority report. The majority report went
something like this. Fellas, we just can't take this
place. Those guys are big. They're warriors. They come from a guy named Anak,
and he was a well-known warrior. It's a land of milk and honey.
I mean, they've got grapes this big. You have to carry them between
two people. I mean, it's fruitful land. It's
desirable land, but we can't take it. We don't have the power.
We don't have the manpower. We don't have the weapons. We
can't do it. That's the majority report. That represents unbelief. Remember Hebrews 3.19 says they
couldn't enter in because of unbelief? That's it. Then there was a minority report,
mainly given by an old fella named Caleb. Joshua and Caleb,
you know they were the only, according to the Bible, they
were the only of the original Hebrew children after they wandered
40 years that entered into the promised land. Who does Joshua
represent? Jesus Christ. Who does Caleb
represent? Caleb's name means faithful one. One old preacher said it meant
faithful dog. Well, Caleb, who's gonna enter
into the promised land? Salvation. Christ and his faithful
ones. Well, Caleb's report was like
this. Wait a minute, fellas. You're all looking at this thing
all wrong. We don't have to take it. It's already ours. All we
have to do is go over and have it. Possess it. It's there. And that's all we have to do.
It's already given. Well, look at Deuteronomy 9.
Look at verse 1. Here, O Israel, thou art to pass
over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and
mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven,
a people great and tall, the children of the Anacoms, that's
the descendants of Anak, whom thou knowest and of whom thou
hast heard say, who can stand before the children of Anak?
Understand therefore this day that the Lord thy God is he which
goeth over before thee." What did Christ do to save his people? He went before us. To do what? To bring down our wall of Jericho. To conquer sin. to put it to
death, he led captivity captive, he went to the cross to die for
our sins, the sins of his sheep, his church, his people, his elect,
to satisfy justice, to accomplish righteousness for his people. As a consuming fire shall he
destroy them and he shall bring them down before thy face, So
shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the
Lord hath said unto thee. Speak not thou in thine heart,
after that the Lord thy God hath cast them out from before thee,
saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to
possess this land. Don't say that, he said. But
for the wickedness of these nations, the Lord doth drive them out
from before thee." It's God's judgment against them. But read
on, verse 5. Not for thy righteousness or
for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go to possess
their land. But for the wickedness of these
nations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee,
and that he may perform the word which the Lord swear unto thy
fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, an unconditional promise.
Verse six, look at this, we'll conclude. Understand therefore
that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess
it for thy righteousness, for thou art a stiff-necked people. Now, remember over in Joshua
chapter 6 that Brother Mark read, and we'll come back to this next
week. When it says there in verse 1
of Joshua 6, Now Jericho was straightly shut up because of
the children of Israel. None went out and none came in.
That's like us shut up in our sins. But verse 2 says this,
And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given. into thine hand Jericho, and
the king thereof, and the mighty men of Valhalla." It's already
yours. Do you know salvation was already
mine before God brought me in to possess it and enjoy it in
my heart? My righteousness was established
at Calvary It was imputed to me by God when he made me his
child and gave me to Christ as my surety. And then one day he
sent his spirit from Christ to impart life and caused me to
enter. He brought down that wall of
Jericho in my heart and caused me to enter into salvation, the
blessedness of it, the enjoyment of it, to possess what I already
had because he'd already given it to me. That's grace, isn't
it? All by the Lord Jesus Christ.