For a scripture reading, turn
with me to Joshua chapter 5. We've already dealt with the
first 12 verses, so we'll read verses 13 through the end of
the chapter. 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, No. But as the 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. I invite you to turn back with
me now to Joshua chapter 5. In our last meeting we looked
at Israel under the headship of Joshua being prepared by God's
commandment to do him service. Everything that is created by
God is created for his service. It serves his purpose. Four things took place in this
preparation. Circumcision, which we know by
the scripture, is the pricking of the heart. It's the opening
of the heart. It's the enabling of the heart
to understand and see God. And also it's a confirmation of His covenant. He circumcised
Abraham. You remember that. It was a seal
of his covenant. And so circumcision is. So to
rightly serve God, we must be circumcised in our heart. And this circumcision enables
us to discern and qualifies us to be a partaker of the Passover. We understand what the blood
is all about. what the body of Christ, it was
broken for us. We understand that. The one thing
that in the fulfillment of this, in the modern church we have
communion, the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine. And
in that ceremony, the only thing that forbids anyone from taking
that ceremony is a lack of understanding. He cannot discern the body and
blood of Christ. And so that's what this circumcision
is all about. It enables us to understand and
discern the body of Christ. And then after the partaking
of the Passover, we have the Feast of the Unleavened Bread.
We feast on unleavened bread. Our Lord tells us what that is.
That's the doctrine of the Pharisees, self-righteous religion. And
our bread doesn't have to have that leaven in it. Nothing helps
him to rise. God raised him from the dead.
And there's no leaven. The leaven of the Pharisees is
a horrible thing. You remember our Lord straightened
his disciples out. They thought because they brought
no bread with him, he was kind of chewing them out for
not... because he told them, beware of the leaven. And he
said, no, this leaven is the leaven of the Pharisees. Self-righteousness
works. mixed with gospel truth. We eat unleavened bread, pure
bread, the bread of God's provision, and it's made from the old corn
grown in Canaan. To me, that old corn speaks of
the types and ceremonies under the law, that gospel. You remember
when they wandered in the wilderness, the wilderness wouldn't grow
anything. But God gave them bread from heaven. And so he gives
us our bread even in the wilderness. He gave it in the form of manna.
It was a supernatural thing. He took his prophets and they
prophesied of a Redeemer that was to come. And they were accurate
in all their descriptions to a T. Quoting the exact words
he'd speak on the cross and so on. He also gave us that gospel
in types and in the ceremonial law. You can read about it in
Hebrews chapter 9 and 10. But we eat that old bread, that
bread that God has established in His kingdom. And His kingdom
is in our hearts. And this unleavened bread, was
talking about Christ come into the flesh. You know the heathen, I thought
this when I was in my study, the heathen grew that corn. But
they had no idea what that corn, the real glory of that corn was
all about. They took that corn and fed it
to hogs, fed it to chickens. That corn, the real glory of
that corn was to make that unleavened bread that glorified God in Christ.
That's the old corn. They had no idea what that corn...
Religion has a working knowledge of Christ. They know that Christ
came, that Christ was born of a woman. You can ask any of them. They'll tell you. But they have
no idea what to do with it. It doesn't mean anything to them.
They have no discernment of it. It's just like that old corn.
They'll feed it to hogs. Remember our Lord said, you be
careful. You don't give pearls to swine. That's what he's talking
about. The heathen had no knowledge
of the true value of the corn. But Israel had a discerning heart.
They prepared that precious bread to eat and worship God. And then
we have the cessation of manna. Manna is the bread in the wilderness.
Manna speaks of God's provenient grace, speaks to us of the gospel
conceived in types and figures, gathered from time to time when
God was pleased to give it. And the fulfillment of these
things is practice. Now, here's a point I want you
to think on. The fulfillment of these things
is practiced in every local church. I'm talking about that preparation
for service. Even without discernment. You
know what they call it? Catechism. You have to be circumcised. You have to partake of the Passover. You have to do this. You have
to do that. And they recite those basic principles of religion
to their children and then at the end of the time they ask
them questions. And by questions and answers,
they determine whether or not that person is saved. And they reward it. How do they
reward it? They allow them to take the communion,
and they allow them to be members of the church. They practice
these things without any discernment, and call it catechism. Now listen to me. The Gospels
preach for one reason. It's to bring you to Christ.
All these preparations that were done, they were all godly preparations. They were all commanded of God. When Joshua received the commandment
of God, he commanded Israel to do these things, and they did
them. But this was not the end of it. When they ate the unleavened
bread, that's not the end of it. He's going to bring them
to Christ. Who's going to do that? God is. He's going to bring
all of his people to Christ. You can't serve God until you
come to Christ. And that's what these verses
is all about. There's one more thing vital to service to God.
There must be a holy confrontation with the Son of God. Jesus Christ
is the revelation of God. Everything God has for sinners
is in Christ. He that hath the Son, John said,
hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life,
whatever he has. and he can have a multitude of
things. He can have a well-ordered life. He can be a large contributor
to the church. He can be a lot of things. He
can turn his life around, so to speak, by changing his habits
and just adapting different principles. He can turn his life around,
but he can't serve God in any capacity until he has this holy
confrontation with Christ. Because we don't understand what
service is. We call everything in the world
service, don't we? Well, we call it some kind of
ministry. Somebody told me one time, I
have a bus ministry. I don't know what that is, but,
you know, an athletic ministry. We have a basketball team, so
we'll call that our athletic ministry. Jesus Christ is all. He's the
revelation of God, and everything that God has for sinners is in
Christ. If we have Him, we have everything
God has for sinners. John wrote, and we know that
the Son of God has come and given us an understanding that we may
know Him that's true. That's what's about to take place
right here in the plains of Jericho. He's going to get Joshua straight
in his mind about the purpose of God and what's going on. That
we might know Him that's true, that we're in Him that's true,
even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. Now let me see if I can paint
the basics of the picture I have for you this morning. Jericho
stands before Israel. It was the basis of the bad report
brought back by the spies 40 years prior to this. They went
over and they saw Jericho and those walled cities. They saw
that they were fortified, that they had engines of war and all
these things. And they come back and they saw
giants in the land. And they come back and said,
we can't do this. All Israel was ready to go. Caleb was ready
to go. Joshua was ready to go. But these nine spies said no.
We can't go. We can't do this. They brought
back a bad report. And they called Israel to fear
and not go in. And God cursed them. And they
wandered around in the desert for 40 years until their carcasses
fell in the sands of the desert. Now I'm going to tell you something.
I hope you get this. The Battle of Jericho is not
about a piece of ground. But you said God gave him that
land. Yes, he did. But it's not about a piece of
ground. It holds the defense of the multitude. It represents the safety of all
of its occupants. It's their dwelling place. And
to top it all off, it houses an evil king. What is Jericho? Jericho is your heart. That's
what this is all about. It's about your heart. Kingdom
of God's in your heart. You can't see the kingdom of
God coming. It either comes or it don't. But it's a work of
God in your heart. That's what this kingdom's all
about. And 40,000 soldiers wasn't enough
to take down Jericho. Jericho had to be taken down
by God. And it was going to be taken down according to his purpose
and by his means. It represents the heart of the
sinner, walled as high as he can stack the stone. Weapons
conjured up by his imagination. The gates are barred shut, allowing
no access. How will men and swords breach
these walls? They won't. They won't. The tears of a loving mother
won't melt the heart of a sinner. Won't do it. Only God can take
out that heart of stone and put in there a heart of flesh. Here's what our Lord said, with
man it is impossible. That's what he's getting ready
to teach Joshua. Nevertheless, Joshua, by God's
command, he goes forward. And as he does, he sees a man
standing with a sword drawn. Joshua's no coward. Joshua walked
right up to that man. Back in the day, it was common
for a nation that's opposed to another nation to send out their
most valiant soldier by himself. History's full of examples of
it, but here's one that you'll remember, David and Goliath.
They sent out Goliath alone, challenging the whole army of
Israel. Well, here's a man standing before Joshua. And Joshua walks
up to him without fear and looks him in the eye and said, are
you for us? or against us. And the last thing in the world
he was expecting this man to say is no. And that's what he
said, no. I'm not for you and I'm not for
your adversaries. I'm the captain of the Lord of
hosts. I'm here representing God. That may be for you, it
may not. Just because Jesus Christ has
become a man doesn't mean that salvation is intended for all
men. This whole thing here is being
illustrated that God's purpose is going to be fulfilled in His
promises of giving natural Israel this land. And it's going to
happen because it's God's purpose. But here's the Son. What's the
Son here? What's His appearance all about?
Well, His appearance in this world, what it's all about is
to accomplish the purpose of God. Now if God grants you faith,
you'll understand that He's for you. That's what Paul said, if
God be for us, who can be against us? But you don't come up there
and ask the Son of God, are you for us or against us? He's going
to tell you no. I'm for God. Now, whose side are you on? You see what I mean? It's not
about whose side he's on, it's whose side I'm on. And that's what he told them.
He said, no. Straight out, no. All these old writers tried to
say, well, that was for the last part of the... No. No was for both parties. I'm
not for you and I'm not for your adversaries. I'm here representing
God. Salvation's of the Lord. It's
for His glory. All of it. Cannot the Lord do what He will
with His own? He's the potter, we're the clay.
He makes vessels of honor and he makes vessels of dishonor.
Every great house our Lord taught has vessels of honor and vessels
of dishonor. You think his house is not great?
He has a great house. And he's the potter and he can
make you what he will. But he's under no obligation
to do it unless he puts himself under obligation. You can't put
God under obligation. And that's what Joshua was going
to do. He was going to put this man with his drawn sword under
an obligation. You going to be with us or you
going to be with our adversaries? No. That's what he said, no. Now here's the thing, you're
not going to serve God until you understand what God's all
about. God's going to save a people for His glory, not for yours.
For His glory. He may have compassion on you.
He may weep over you as Christ did over Israel. He may weep
over you. But I'm going to tell you something.
His purpose is the glory of God. And that's when Christ prayed,
knowing who He was and why He was here and for whom He prayed
and all these things, when He prayed, He said, Father, glorify
me with thine own self, with the glory I had with thee before
the world was. That glory is the glory of God. I came to do thy will, O God.
Isn't that what it says in Hebrews chapter 10? What will? His redemptive will. And I'm
going to tell you something, he's going to do it his way,
with his means, and we'll find that out as we go into this battle
of Jericho. But here's a man standing there, And he's telling us, I'm not
here on either account. I'm here as captain of the host
of the Lord. What's he telling Joshua? He's
telling Joshua, I run the show, not you. That's what he's telling
him. I'm captain. And that's all you
need to know. Truth of the matter is, we're
all undeserving, ill-deserving sinners. We have neither right
nor claim to anything from God. All that a sinner can hope for
is free and sovereign grace. That's what we preach, sovereign
grace. What that means is it's the grace
of a sovereign. He can give it or withhold it.
Read Romans 9 and see if that's not what it says. He said, I singled out Pharaoh
to use him to declare my power and show my wrath. That whole
man's life was headed that direction. Couldn't our Lord have shown
mercy to Pharaoh? He could, but he didn't. He could
have to Esau, but he didn't. He's sovereign. He gives it to
whom he will. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. All that the sinner can hope
for is free and sovereign grace. And just because you suddenly
realize you need a new start, doesn't mean God is going to
give you one. Just because you see some urgent need, doesn't
obligate God to run to your defense. I'm trying to be as straight
and plain as I can be this morning because religion has everybody believing that God loves everyone,
God's just standing here with a handful of grace, and he's
just going to force it down you if you don't want it. He'll just
force it down you. And he's waiting on you to make
a decision. Now, you won't make the right decision in 100 years
if he don't do a work in your heart. You'll make a decision,
all right, but a man is to hell. We're just ill-deserving sinners.
If we find any grace at all, it'll be because God showed it.
I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and whom I will I'll
harden. That's what he said. And you're going to say unto
him, well, why do you yet find fault? If nobody's resisted the
will of God, how can God find fault? And here's the answer. Paul said, Nay, but, O man, who
art thou that replyest against God? And that's been my point
this whole thing this morning. Who are you? Who am I? We're
going to come out here and start demanding, shooting questions
out and demanding things of God. This was the God man standing
before Joshua. And by the grace of God, he knew
it. And when he told him who he was, he fell on his face on
the ground. And I tell you, if he ever brings you to a confrontation
of Christ, what's this confrontation all about? It's a holy confrontation. What's that mean? That means
God's glory and His name is in His Son. And everything He does
has to be 100% consistent with the character of God. That's
holiness. And that holiness is all working, all at the same
time, in perfect harmony. And that's what he told Joshua.
Place your stand in holy ground. This is holy ground. Back in
religion, we had a mourner's bench up front. We'd have an
altar call and they'd all come down and pray around that mourner's
bench. One night, the preacher got up and he said, now this
is just a wooden bench. He said, there's no efficacy
in it. It's just a place where men meet God. Well, let me tell
you something. You find that place where men
meet God, you got more efficacy and you know what to do with
it. And that's exactly what this man told Joshua. He said, get
your shoes off. You're not going to walk on the
holiness of God. Take your shoes off. This is
holy ground. You're not going to trample me
under feet like everybody else. You belong to me. Take your shoes
off. And he did as he was commanded. What happens to a man when he
comes into a holy confrontation like this? We'll say exactly
what Gospel did. What would you have your servant
to do? Now he's ready to serve. Now I know who God is. I know
what God's doing in general. Not in particular, but in general,
I know He's going to save me in His gospel. But I know He
sits on the throne. He ain't leaning over the banister
of heaven begging sinners to come down now. He's seated on
the throne. He's expecting until his enemies
be made his footstool. Do you think that man with that
sword drawn was scared of Jericho? I'll tell you what the Lord said
with this man after he appeared to Joshua. That man looked at
him, that's the God man, that's the one mediator between God
and men, the man Christ Jesus. And he turned around and looked
at Joshua and he said, this day God has given you Jericho into
your hands. What do you mean today? Because he gave it to him in
Christ. And Christ can't fail. He can't fail. Jericho is nothing before Him.
The nations are but a drop in the bucket. Oh, my soul. A confrontation
with man. I worked construction for years,
and over the desk at contractor sales, there was a sign. Here's
what it says, negligence on your part does not constitute an emergency
on my part. But men think it does. They think
they can confront God with their predicament and God is going
to be urgent to run and take care of things. He's God. You're
just nothing but a peanut center. You ain't nothing before God. If you receive anything from
God, it's going to be grace. pure grace 100% grace it's going
to be a gift and it's going to be his idea his purpose and for
his glory and I guarantee you it'll be by his means and not
yours God saves sinners according as
they fulfill his divine and eternal purpose He said, It is not of
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. The Apostle Paul who wrote foreseeing men's reactions to
that, that's why he said what he said there, Thou wilt say
unto me, Why doth he yet find Paul? Paul's been accused of
that many times, among other things. But who are thou that
replyest against God? All our doubts and unbelief,
all of our rebellious reactions come from our ignorance of God
and His purpose of grace. We don't understand what God's
doing. If I understood that God's means to save my soul was preaching
the gospel, you couldn't put up a roadblock to keep me from
being here. Huh? You see what I'm saying? Here's
where our ignorance is, we don't understand what God's doing and
we don't know who God is. My soul, God's sovereign. He said if I was hungry I wouldn't
tell you I own the cattle on a thousand hills, that's my cattle
out there. All our doubts, all our unbelief,
all our rebellious reactions come from our ignorance of God
and His purpose for grace. And here's a man who appears
and declares he's for God. He's 100% for the glory of God. I cannot serve God in such a
way as that he gets all the glory. till I have a holy confrontation
with Christ and see that he's the head, he's the captain, he
is my salvation, he is my life. Now I can serve God. And what's taking place here
is the type being confronted with the reality. Here's Joshua,
he's a type of Christ, his name is is written the same in the
New Testament, they call his name Jesus. He's the type of
Christ. But the type now meets the reality. And that's what, when he confronts
us with Christ, that's what he does. He takes the type and then
shows us the reality. That's exactly what's taking
place here. This is the prophet being confronted,
the prophecy being confronted with the prophet. picture being
brought into focus by the person. And there can be little doubt
about this man. This is a pre-incarnate appearance
of Christ. So how does God reveal His Son?
Now we know what's going on. There's going to be a holy confrontation
with Christ. We can't serve Him apart from
Christ because He's our righteousness. He's our wisdom. He's my wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. He's all in all of me. I can't
serve God apart from Him. I can't worship God apart from
Him. But how does He appear? How does
God reveal His Son? Well, the first thing I see in
this type is He reveals His Son alone. He's all alone. Even though He had armies of
angels waiting on His command, this man stands there alone. And when he confronts you with
Christ, he's going to confront you with Christ alone, not Christ
in your works or Christ in your religion and Christ in your experience
or anything else. He's going to reveal to you Christ
is sufficient alone. And that's how he reveals it. He stands between Israel and
Jericho, between failure and success, between shame and between
glory. And he stands there. And what we need to get out of
that is the Father hath first trusted in the Son, whom we also
trusted after we heard the word of truth. He trusted first in
the Son, all things. Christ said He delivered all
power into my hands, all judgment in my hands, all things committed
unto Him. And Christ is all and in all,
and He alone is sufficient. He is sufficient to all that
God has purposed to do. And all of Israel saw this man
alone. Secondly, they saw Joshua fall
on his face before this man to worship him. The man who hopes
to lead God's sheep or serve God in any way must first be
brought to fall on his face and worship the Lord Jesus Christ.
You can't tell what you don't know. I don't care how well you
prepare it. And I'd say this of the entire
Old Testament. The law, the prophets, and all
the types. They're all going to fall on
their face before Christ. He's all. He's the end of the law. What's
that mean? The goal of the law. The highest
expectation of the law is Christ. He's our righteousness. And when
the preaching is finished, and the work of God the Spirit is
performed, it leaves us on our face before Christ. And then secondly, I see this
man with a sword drawn. A drawn sword tells me he's ready
to conquer, he's ready to do battle. He's not content to sit. He has a sword drawn, holding
it in his hand. He's ready to fight to the death,
ready to die for the cause. Where else do I see him? I see
him standing at the front. Please God that in him should
all fullness dwell. Pre-eminence is all in Christ.
Please the Father. And he stands at the front, and
he stands there with a sword drawn. What's this sword? That's
the Word of God. That's what it is. How is he
going to conquer Jericho with the Word of God? How is God going
to overcome what Jericho represents, the religious refuge where men
go and hide from God? By the Word of God, the weapons
of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual to the tearing
down of strongholds. What's he talking about? He's
talking about the Gospel of God's sovereign grace. preaching of
the gospel, the word of God. Now he says to us, let this mind
be in you which also was in Christ Jesus, who being in the form
of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Here's
a man standing before them. This is the God man, but it's
God in the person of a man. Actually, the man standing there
tells Joshua who he's for. He took not on him the nature
of angels, but the seed of Abraham. He become a man to save men.
Robed himself in human flesh. And then think about this. What is this sword? It's the
word of the truth of the gospel. The word of God is not written
so we can Keep touch with genealogies or have some basis for debates. Keep track of historical events. The Bible's the testimony of
God concerning His Son. That's what it is. All of it. All of it. Even the parts that
we can't understand. Even if you don't understand
something, you better understand this. It's the testimony of God
of how God saves sinners. If you ever hope to understand
a verse, that's how you're going to see it. That's the glass you
need to look through. The Word is effectual in the
hands of the God-man. And all Scripture is rightly
divided as we see it manifested in Christ. And then thirdly,
I see this man speaking for God. He's not silent. He speaks for
God. His appearance, his stature,
his means all speak to Israel about God. And this man said to Joshua,
take your shoes off. Loose thy shoes from off thy
foot, for the ground whereon thou standest is holy ground.
And the revelation of Christ is always holy ground. It's the
revelation of God's character to men, saving character. No
compromise. And he reveals himself as he
is and not how men picture him to be. Joshua, in his mind, concluded
that this man was either for them or against them. He never
one time considered that this man standing before him was the
Son of God. And when we think about Christ,
I did as a young man, I didn't know what I thought. I thought
everything under the sun about God until I learned who God was
and saw Him in the preaching of the Gospel. God wore down Jericho's walls
by a man that they cannot see. Only Israel saw this man. But they do see him and they
worship him who is the Son of God. But the most important thing
here is that this man, what this man says to Joshua, I'm captain
of the host of the Lord. Everything that the Lord has
for fallen sinners is in his hand. He's the captain. I think
I read that in Hebrews chapter 2. The captain of our salvation
was made perfect through suffering. He's the captain. And he's Lord to the glory of
God the Father. He's running the show. He's in
charge. He's the Lord of the dead and
the living. Paul said, No man liveth to himself, and no man
dieth to himself. So whether we live or die, we
die to the Lord. He's the Lord. You know, Brother Mayhem was
telling these things. I'm talking about Paul Mayhem,
not his daddy. He was talking to a man about these things and
that man looked at him and he said, well, if I listen to what
you're telling me, you're making man out to be a puppet and God's
just pulling the strings. And Paul said, well, what's the
alternative? God's the puppet and man's pulling the strings.
He said, I'd rather be the puppet. Truth is, it's God that worketh
in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. And service
to God begins with the means appointed. They gathered at the
memorial. They kept the means of God. They
kept the Passover circumcision unleavened bread. They were given
discernment of the body and the blood of Christ. And the means, all of these means,
what was the end of all these means? It was to bring them to
a holy confrontation with Christ. And that's what we do here. I
don't care if we're talking about communion, if we're talking about
baptism, if we're talking about the preaching of the gospel,
all the means that God has put in place is put in place for
one reason, to bring you to this holy confrontation to Christ.
I'm pointing you to Him, I'm describing Him the best I know
how, And I'm pointing you to Him. And I'm telling you, if
you ever see Him, you'll fall on your face. You'll worship
Him from now on. And you'll rejoice in Christ
Jesus. We are the circumcision that
rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Joshua,
after seeing this man, he had no confidence in his flesh. He
just listened to what this man said. And we always think in our mind,
boy, it's, I'll tell you what, this man has some potential to
be saved and that man don't. That's a bunch of hooey. They all have walls just like
Jericho. And apart from the power of God, you ain't gonna tear
down that refuge. You'll hide there until he dies.
Wait so he can do it. Oh, may the Lord give us some
understanding of this holy confrontation with Christ. This is what it's
all about. If you miss this, you miss God.
You miss life. You miss it all. Everything God
has is in this man. Especially our understanding
of what's taking place.