My text in Joshua this morning
is only two verses long, but I want to back up a little bit
in our reading, so turn with me to Joshua chapter 5. Joshua chapter 5. We'll begin reading in verse
13 of Joshua chapter 5. And it came to pass, when Joshua
was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes, and looked, and
behold, there stood a man over against him, with his sword drawn
in his hand. And Joshua went unto him, and
said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he
said, Nay, but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now
come. And Joshua fell on his face to
the earth and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my
Lord unto his servant? And the captain of the Lord's
host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for
the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so. Now Jericho was straightly shut
up because of the children of Israel. None went out. None came in. And the Lord said
unto Joshua, See, I have given unto thine hand Jericho, and
the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor. And ye shall compass the city,
all ye men of war, and go round about the city once, thus shalt
thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear
before the ark of the seven trumpets of ram's horns. And the seventh day you shall
compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with
the trumpets. And it shall come to pass that
when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, that you shall
hear the sound of the trumpets. All the people shall shout with
a great shout, and the wall of the city shall fall down flat,
and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him.
And so Joshua instructs the priests of the Lord to do so. How many of you have read these
passages this past week and give them some thought and prayer?
Anybody? I invite you this morning to turn
with me to Joshua chapter 6. We're going to look at these
first two verses in Joshua chapter 6. What we've been doing is studying
the book of Joshua as it's viewed as typical of Christ, His church,
and all that are opposed to Him. In Hebrews chapter 9 with a brief
description of the priesthood and the old covenant, Paul tells
us in Hebrews 9.9 that these things were a figure for the
time then present. They actually killed the lamb,
spilled its blood, roasted its body, did all of these things.
They actually went through these things, but they were a figure.
And they were set before men the same as I would set the Lord's
table before you with a declared discernment of what these things
are figuring. They were taught these things.
Now most of them just did them, the way some people do when I
pass out the bread. They take the bread, they take
the wine, they drink it, they eat the bread, but they have
no discernment of what these things mean, and they have no
personal interest in them. A lot of old Israel was that
way, and they were easily led astray. These things had no meaning
to them. They had no personal attachment
to them. There was no love there. There was no trust, no comfort.
And it was easy then when the Gentiles led them astray and
said, well, you don't want to go down there and gather. One
man was asked after visiting here, he said, what did you think?
He said, well, two songs and a sermon. I brought a message
out next week, if you remember. Two songs and a sermon. I tell
you what, if the Lord would send you a sermon, send you a message,
He'll save your soul. That's how important that is. And our songs are a revelation
of what we have on our hearts. So this is what I'm trying to
do this morning. I'm laboring somewhat to do it.
But these things are a figure. They were typical and used to
illustrate what was yet to come, the Savior, His sacrifice, the
redemption that he would accomplish. And in much the same way, Peter
uses the Ark of Noah. He said that that Ark demonstrated
baptism. Well, it didn't look like that
at the time. People were walking up that ramp
into there that people had watched all the animals get on board. You know, animals are funny.
We brought the horse down to his new home last night and he
was all out in the grass eating, you know, and the dogs were trying
to chase him and he was getting introduced into a whole new society. Can you imagine wild animals
that have known nothing but this world and whatever, wherever
they were, and now they're coming two by two onto the ark? I don't know if Noah led them
into the ark or what he did. I suspect that's what he did.
These animals were just as tame as they could be going onto that
ark. And he uses that as a picture
of baptism. We're in Christ, being buried
in him, risen with him, ascended with him. That's what baptism
is all about. So these things were typical
and used to illustrate what was yet to come. The redemption that
he would accomplish. It says in Romans 15, 4, for
whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our
learning, that through patience and comfort of the Scriptures.
That's what I hope to do this morning as I paint this picture
for you, is that God will give you some comfort from these things,
that you'll see these things and be comforted. Not only comforted,
but inspired. Joshua needed inspiration. He
was standing before an undefeatable foe, a walled city, armed men,
and so on. And there was probably, I don't
know the historic facts of it, but there was probably more people
inside Jericho than there was standing outside. It seemed an
impossible task, is what I'm saying. So what I hope to do for you
this morning is to paint for you a word picture concerning
God's gift to his people in Christ and all else that's given to
them through him. Now last week and the week before
we were looking at things as the believer is being prepared
for service. And then we looked at a pre-incarnate
appearance of Christ. This man with a drawn sword was
none other than Christ himself. He was the man with the sword
drawn. And if I understand Hebrews 4 correctly, this sword is the
Word of God as it's revealed in Christ and the preaching of
the gospel. It leaves nothing hidden. It
divides asunder. Whether you know it or not, the
Word of God divides. You won't be the same when you
leave here if you hear what I'm saying. There's a vision made. There's nothing left hidden.
It's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of your heart. And
so the gospel does these things. It reveals our sin and things
that are hidden from the world. Reveals our heart. He says it reveals all things
naked and open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
Now Jesus Christ, let me state this as clearly as I know how.
Jesus Christ is the God-man. All you'll ever know of God or
hear from God, you're going to hear from Him. This is the God-man. No man has seen God of any kind.
No man. But Christ has revealed Him unto
us. He's the God-man and he's the
mediator, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. So if you look at the mediator
as a man making peace, that's one way to look at it. Another
way to look at the mediator is he mediates the grace of God.
The gifts of God, they're all mediated through him. He passes
them out. He gives them to whom he wills.
He's the mediator. And He's God over all, Paul said,
blessed forever. To know Him is to know God. And to know God is eternal life.
In verse 2 of Joshua 6, it says, The Lord said unto Joshua. Not a figment of his imagination,
not something that was not. just
a dream or a vision or something. What God communicates to His
people, He always does so through His Son. He spoke to His prophets. He spoke by different names.
But in these last days, He's spoken to us in Son. That's how that's literally interpreted. In His Son or in Son. That is, in the language of His
Son. In the revelation of His Son.
And when God communicates to His people, He always does so
through His Son. When He sent out the Seventy
to preach, you say, well, He communicated through the Seventy
a little bit, but what He said to them, He that heareth you,
heareth Me. Sometimes God purposes, and in
the preaching of the Gospel, that's the way it is. Whatever it is that God will
say to lost sinners, He'll say by His Son. We preach a person,
not a persuasion. Someone asked an old preacher
one time, he said, what persuasion are you? He said, well, he said,
I'm persuaded that He's able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. And he said, I'm persuaded that
neither life nor death nor things present nor things to come nor
any other thing shall separate me from the love of God which
is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's my persuasion. Now, let me ask you something.
Will God save sinners? He will in Christ. He's going
to destroy Jericho, but he's going to save Rahab. Rahab was a harlot. That's a professor of religion,
somebody that's buried themselves in religion. That's the harlot. Will God save sinners? Well,
he will in Christ. In Christ alone, God is just
in his justification of those who believe on Christ. He's righteous
in his remission of their sins. Now let me ask you something.
Will chosen sinners be victorious over their enemies? They will
in Christ. This is what God is communicating
to Joshua. He will in Christ. He must reign
until He has put all enemies under His feet. And it's what the Lord said unto
Joshua that gave him confidence and assurance that I want you
to see here. What did the Lord say to Joshua? I read it to you
just a few minutes ago. He said, See! What does he tell
every chosen sinner that he sends the gospel to? He said, See! What did he tell Blind Bartimaeus?
See! Did he? Yes, he did. Yes, he
did. And so he says to every chosen
sinner. Now Jericho lied before him with
its doors barred. Nobody coming in, nobody going
out. That is, you don't do anything
apart from the Lord. He'll fix it in his providence
so that you don't. Wald and 45 Jericho stood an
impossible task. So what's the Lord going to tell
him about Jericho? Seize him. Now the word means perceive.
He wasn't telling him to look at this walled city. He'd already
saw that. The spies before him saw that.
That's why they came back with an evil report. We can't possibly
take Jericho. It's walled. It's fortified. But he tells us to seize. What are we going to see? We're
going to see the will of God, what we're going to see, and
we're going to see it in this man. He said, I'm not for you,
I'm not against you, I'm not for your adversaries, I'm for
the Lord. We're going to know the will
of God. That's the first thing we're going to find out from
this man. It says, Lo, in the volume of
the book it's written of me, I come to do thy will, O God. Why is he here? To do the will
of God. That's why he's here. That's
why he's appearing. That's what he means every time he appears. What will? God's redemptive will. That's the will of God. It may
pertain to this and that and all kinds of little details,
The general will of God is His redemptive will. He's going to
save a people for the glory of His name. Everything else is
expendable. Everything else is going to be
destroyed. And listen to this, if you don't
think that's the will of God, listen to this, verse 10 of Hebrews
10. By the which will, that is the
doing of the will of God, We are sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Jesus Christ appeared to manifest
the will of God in the matter of the inheritance of God's saints. That's what's going on here.
God's going to give them a who knows how many thousand year
old promise that he made to Abraham he's going to give to the children
of Israel. How's he going to do it? through
this man with the sword drawn, through the Lord, through the
mediator. All of our preparation for service
is for naught if he doesn't bring us to Christ. This is the high point of faith. God gives you faith to believe
His Word. his means, to submit to his means
and so on. But it's all for naught if he
don't bring you to Christ. Faith rests its confidence and
everything in Christ alone. He's the gift of God. Now stay
with me, I'm going somewhere with all this. He is the unspeakable
gift of God. Christ is. To receive Christ
is to receive all things concerning our inheritance. To receive Christ. See, the Lord said to Joshua,
I have given into thy hand Jericho and its king and all of its men
of valor. How did he do it? By giving us
Christ. He gave this man that stand before him. He gives them
a revelation of Him, and He stands before them. And Jericho comes
with Him. Now, here's the thing. As believers,
we're going to face all kinds of things. God didn't just send
a bunch of insects in there and run all the people out of Canaan.
They're going to go in there with swords and spears, and they're
going to fight. They're going to take part in
this fight. But in the end, every battle
fought will glorify God because they couldn't do it on their
own. Now, if I have Christ, don't
leave here without understanding this. If I have Christ, I have
all things. There was a man years ago, he
was an art collector. And he had one son before his
wife died. And he brought his son up in
the art world. And his son had as much interest
as he did in fine art. And he could maneuver, by the
time he got 18, 19 years old, he could maneuver through the
art world as well as his dad. And they both had reputations
in the art world. He was a collector of these rare
paintings. Very wealthy man. Had a servant.
Servant took care of his son. So on. And in time, war broke
out. And they reinstituted the draft,
and this young man got drafted into the Army. So he went into
service, put him over in Vietnam or wherever it was. In the process
of time, the son was killed in battle. And one day, the old
man got a knock on the door, and there was a couple of uniformed
officers there told him that his son had been killed, and
it just, oh, it just practically destroyed the old man. He loved
his son. So several years went on and
the old man struggled, but he kept going. One day there was a knock on
the door and there was a soldier there. He said, my name's Frank
or Bobby or whatever his name was. And he said, I was with
your son. We were partners in this thing.
went into many battles, and he said, I was with your son when
he died. And he said, I'm not the kind of artist that you're
interested in. I know that. But he said, one
day I was talking to your son, and he said, I shared his interest
in art. He said, I went to school for
it and so on. But he said, I drew a portrait of your son. And he
uncovered it. He said, I thought you might
want this painting. The old man was just overwhelmed. Of course I want it, you know.
Cherished that painting of his son and he did a very good likeness
of it. So when the man left, he took
his most prized painting down, took this little portrait of
his son and put it up in its place. And over time, the old
man finally died. Nobody left but the old servant
And they had to settle the estate. They brought in the auctioneer
and the guy in charge of liquidating the estate. First thing on the
auction block was the sun. They took it down off the fireplace,
put it up. He began his auction. He couldn't
get a bid, Russell. Nobody wanted it. They were waiting
to get these big, high-priced paintings. Finally, the old servant says,
I'll give you $5. And the auctioneer just went
on and on and on trying to get a bid, but couldn't get a bid.
And he finally said, $5 once, $5 twice, sold this man for $5. And then the auctioneer just
took his book, closed it up, and he said, the auction's over.
And they said, wait a minute, we drove for days to get here.
We're waiting on the prize possessions to come out. And he said, well,
I'll read to you in the will. He that gets the sun gets it
all. That's what I'm trying to preach.
He that gets the sun gets it all. This is the value when the Son
is revealed. It's not just that you get the
Son, but what good thing will the Lord withhold from those
to whom He's given His Son? He won't give anything back. This is what God is saying to
Joshua. See what I'm saying to you this morning. See. See past
the battle. See past the trials. See past the magnitude
of the enemy. My soul, you can't go half a
mile here without running into a church that's desperately opposed
to what we preach. You've got to get past all that
if you're going to have to see the Son. If you have the Son,
Jericho is nothing but a paper, just a paper wall. That's all
it is. Who's going to stand before the
Lord? What is there out there that's going to defeat these
little ones to whom God has given His Son? Nothing. Nothing. It ought to inspire
us, shouldn't it? Jericho is just a gift that accompanied
the sun. That's what he's telling Joshua.
See, understand this. I'm here and I've given into
your hand this city. Your hand. You're going to raise
the sword and you're going to go in, but I've given it to you.
It's a gift. Jericho, what is Jericho? It's
the heart. It's that religious refuge that
men hide in. It represents the palace of the
evil king whose goods are at peace until a stronger than he
comes and spoils his house. He overcomes that evil king.
He overcomes all that power, all that strength, all that peace,
and spoils his house. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Satan is as much at work in false religion as the men who are in them. Every
religious profession and hiding place from God, Satan is in the
midst of it. He's the strength of it. Within
that walled city, he points to the barred doors and the solid
walls and men of valor And he cries, peace, peace, where there
is no peace. He soothes their fears saying,
you remember that open door? It was open for anybody that
wanted to come in and you made your decision to come in. Now
rest in your decision. Rest in that experience of grace
that you experienced. You rest in those things. You did the right thing when
you made your decision. came in through the open door.
Now comfort yourself with your decisions. And all those who listen, take
comfort, and they feel secure, but God's not in the equation.
See, that's the problem. You come to the front. You say
the sinner's prayer. You do this. You do that. Well,
where's your comfort? Where's your assurance? In yourself. God's not in the equation. A refuge is not a refuge unless
it's secure from God. God is the one that's... I'm talking about this refuge.
A good refuge is one that is in harmony with God. It gives
him no reason for an assault. It's according to his purpose
and grace. And Jericho is a picture of man's
deceived heart trying to hide from God. It's a stronghold, but it's no
match for God. Naturally speaking, it's beyond
our ability to breach its walls and weapons. But it's nothing
but paper fortress before God. Listen to these verses over in
Isaiah 28. He said, because you have said,
we've made a covenant with death, and with hell we're at agreement.
Who did that? People did. Somebody told them
they could do that, and they did what they were told. You've
made a covenant with death, and with hell we're at agreement.
And when the overflowing scourge shall come through, it won't
come nigh unto us, because we've made lies our refuge. And under falsehood have we hid
ourselves. Therefore thus saith the Lord
God, Behold, I lay in Zion, that is the church, a tried stone,
a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. And by him will I
lay to the lion judgment and righteousness, And hell shall
sweep away your refuge of lies, and water shall overflow your
hiding place. And your covenant with death
will be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not
stand. This whole thing is about God giving all things in Christ
to his people. All things pertaining to their
inheritance. And what pertains to that inheritance
is cleaning out this place. That's what he's going to do.
He's going to cleanse Canaan. And that's the heart. Every man
that hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he's pure. He's
going to cleanse this thing out. He's going to tear down your
hiding place. How's he going to do it? Not with weapons of
the flesh, not with carnal weapons. The weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, but mighty through God. To do what? To pull down
the strongholds, casting down imaginations. It's an imagination
that says that you're hiding from God anywhere except in Christ. That's just your imagination.
That's why he destroyed the world back in Noah's day. Every thought
of the imagination of men was only evil continual. And listen to this, he speaks
in a personal and past tense when he talks to Joshua. He said,
I have given. He gives what's his to give. And
he gives it to those he desires to give it to. And the gospel
is always about what Christ has done and not about what he's
going to do. It's always about what he's done
already. He talks about Jericho as a thing
past. It's already past. Now what I'm struggling to preach
this morning is that when God gave us His Son, He gave us all
things. Nothing is held back. He does
not give us Christ and then block our way with impossible things. If God reveals His Son to you,
He will give also unto you all that is given by Him. You understand
what I'm saying? Christ is the object of our faith,
but if I had Him, I've got victory over every trial that's going
to come, every opposition that's going to come, any person that
tries to rebel against those things, I have the victory over
them. All things are yours. The world, the apostles, All
the means of God are given to you. God has means by which he's
going to destroy this city. I read a little bit about it
to you. We'll get into it in more detail
next week. Oh, may the Lord give us some
understanding of what we have in Christ. All right. Thank you.