If you will take your Bibles
and turn with me to Joshua chapter 5. And it came to pass, when all
the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward,
and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard
that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before
the children of Israel until we passed over, that their heart
melted. Neither was there spirit in them
anymore because of the children of Israel. At that time, the
Lord said unto Joshua, Make these sharp knives, and circumcise
again the children of Israel the second time. And Joshua made
him sharp knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the
hill of the four skins. And this is the cause why Joshua
did circumcise all the people that came out of Egypt that were
males, even all the men of war died in the wilderness, by the
way, after they came out of Egypt. Now all the people that were,
that came out were circumcised, but all the people that were
born in the wilderness, by the way, as they came forth out of
Egypt, they had not been circumcised. For the children of Israel walked
forty years in the wilderness, until all the people that were
men of war that came out of Egypt were consumed, because they obeyed
not the voice of the Lord, unto whom the Lord swore that He would
not show them the land which He sware unto their fathers,
that He would give us a land that floweth with milk and honey.
And their children, whom He raised up in their stead, them Joshua
circumcised, for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised
them in the way. And it came to pass, when they
had done circumcising all the people that they abode in their
places in the camps, till they were whole. And the Lord said
unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt, from
off you, wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto
this day. And the children of Israel all
encamped at Gilgal and kept the Passover on the 14th day of the
month and even in the plains of Jericho. And they did all
eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the Passover. Unleavened cakes, parched corn in the cell same
day. And the manna ceased on the morrow
after they had eaten of the old corn of the land. Neither had
the children of Israel manna any more, but they did eat of
the fruit of the land of Canaan. May the Lord add his blessing
to the reading of his word. Well, it's good to be here this
morning. Seems like I've spent more time in the hospital than
I have at home this month. And time will tell the reason why. But I'm glad to be here today.
I invite you to turn With me, back to Joshua chapter 5, I'm
going to be using verses 1 through 12 as my text this morning on
this subject, in preparation of God's work. That's what's being talked about
here in these verses. There are, in Holy Scripture,
three Passover's. The first is the work of Christ
reconciling us unto God, pictured in their deliverance out of Egypt.
We are, in Christ, new creatures. Old things are passed away. Man
is condemned. He's condemned in Adam. As long
as he's condemned, he can do nothing. But if the Lord be gracious
and save that man, he's a new creature. Old things are passed
away. That old condemnation is gone. Old things, old principles, old
situations, old standings, old inabilities, these things are
all passed away. All things have become new. Now
he's in Christ. Everything's considered as being
in Christ. That Passover pictured that.
that reconciliation in Christ. And being quickened together
with Christ, we are justly reconciled in Christ, reconciled to God.
There's no trouble between us. The trouble's been settled. The
war's over. The second Passover is when God
in power and in the Holy Ghost calls us out of darkness into
his marvelous light. given faith and being led to
repentance, we passed over to a very exclusive state of being. I don't know if you realize that
or not, but narrow is the way that leads to heaven and few
there be that be thereon. It's a very exclusive state of
being to be saved, to have the work of God performed in you. Have your eyes opened to see,
blessed are your eyes, they see your ears, they hear. We have become partakers by God's
power of the inheritance of the saints in light. We have received
and see that revelation of God in Christ. We see Him in all
things. If I look at creation, I know
that He's the Creator. If I look at creation, I know
why it's there. It's for Him. By Him and for
Him. And we walk in a condemned world
with condemned men who oppose all that we're about. And Christ
rules over this situation. He rules over it with an iron
hand arranging all things for our good and His glory. There's
nothing that this condemned world, though they oppose everything
that we do and everything that we say, there's nothing that
they can do to stop it any more than these Amorites and Canaanites
could. And then the third Passover we
will experience when this earthly tabernacle fades away. We'll
pass over from mortality to immortality, from a temporary life to eternal
life. And in each of these, God will
use us for His eternal purpose of grace. And everything God
has made, He's made by Christ and for Him, so that the believer's
calling is a calling into service. Everything that you see, everything
that is, is created to serve God in some way. I don't care
if you're here and you're an unbeliever and you hate God.
God will use you to serve His purpose. He'll use all things. He used these Amorites and Canaanites
and all of these things. We're studying these things this
morning as they typify the work of God. And they serve Him in
whatever way He sees fit. He'll show His wrath and make
His power known on the vessels of wrath which are fitted for
destruction. So that the believer's calling
is a calling into service. He does not save sinners and
leave them cowering in the corner. He makes them meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints and light. We're partakers of
His grace. We don't just hear it and now
it becomes a point of argument or debate. We're partakers. He makes us meet to serve his
purpose of grace. And so we see Israel as in a
type of God's elect passing through Jordan by the power and hand
of God to serve as being fellow laborers with God in his kingdom. And what we're looking at in
these verses is a picture of the second Passover that I described
to you. God's elect leave their wilderness
life and began to enter into their rest in Christ. Which is
Joshua, pictured in Joshua. Joshua is a picture of Jesus
Christ. His name is written in Holy Scripture
the same. Calls him Jesus in Hebrews chapter
4. My subject this morning is in
preparation for God's work. Paul wrote It is God that worketh
in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. God works
in his people. He that hath begun a good work
in you, Paul said, this is my hope, that he which hath begun
a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. And we need reminders of this
every time we meet. We're sinners being saved by
grace. I'll tell you, if you have any
hope in this flesh, I feel sorry for you. May the Lord be pleased
to do that work in you. There's nothing in this flesh
to be proud of. There's nothing in this flesh
that's worth anything. It's useless. It's just useless
flesh. And we need to be reminded of
it every day of our earthly sojourn. In our last study, I did my best
to show you that in Joshua, all Israel crossed over on dry ground,
crossed through that river at flood stage. That is, they crossed
over in Christ. And the foundation of the church
was laid where God's elect lodges in that place where the reproach
of Egypt was rolled away. Now I want us to see some things
that God commands by way of His Son to prepare His people to
serve Him and His Kingdom. There's four things pictured
in these verses that take place in every local church to prepare
his people for what surely lies ahead. The first of those things is
circumcision. The second is the Passover. The
third is unleavened bread. And then the fourth thing that
takes place here is the cessation of manna. No more manna. They
had manna when they were in the wilderness, but not in the Promised
Land. So what is circumcision? It's
the removal of the male foreskin. That's what it is, circumcision.
Well, how does this find its way into the ceremonial law of
God? Well, the foreskin of the male
is a picture of man in his degenerate state, useless flesh, good for
nothing except to collect and harbor corruption. That's all
it is. And these men gathered at the
command of Joshua at the memorial in Gilgal, and every one of them
under 20 years of age, most of them were born in the wilderness,
but none of them were men of war when they left Egypt. But
they were all under 20 years of age when God numbered Israel
after their exodus out of Egypt. because of unbelief had caused them to be confined
to 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Not because of what
they did, but because of what their fathers did. Oh, they lived like everybody
else, The priest would go down to the tabernacle and all these
unbelievers would gather there. They looked just like everybody
else. They all had what was expected of them to say. They all said
those things. You couldn't tell any difference.
You'd look out on a congregation of Israel, you couldn't tell
any difference. You couldn't tell who was there because of
unbelief and who wasn't. They still gathered at the tabernacle,
they still presented their sacrifices, and they lived out their days
just like everybody else. But their carcasses would fall
in the wilderness. Not one of them would enter into
his rest. Not one of them. He said, they're
not going to see this land. Now, I can't find a clear reason
for their uncircumcision in the scripture. You're not going to
find it. It doesn't just tell you why they weren't circumcised. Except to say this, that it was
a further denial of the ways and means of salvation because
of their unbelief. When you exercise unbelief, you're
not just hurting yourself, you're hurting your children, you're
hurting your loved ones, your relatives. It's not just you. they're all going to suffer because
of it. Could be that your example in being here and your example
in believing and your stand and your demeanor of life is going
to stand as a witness to them. Now you throw that down the drain
for something, you just threw away all your hope. You just threw it away like it
was nothing. He uses words like this over in Hebrews chapter
10. He said, Counting the blood of the covenant as an unholy
thing, just a common thing, like a glass of water. Or the dirt
you walk on. And doing despite unto the spirit
of grace. Can you imagine? And yet that's exactly what they
did in their own belief. This was just a part of that
condemnation, just like if we lay out, and we got young children,
and we lay out, and we go do this, and we count that more
important than being here, and so on and so forth. Your kids
see that. They understand that. And they're
denied the means that you cast aside. You don't want to do that. I'm telling you, you're on dangerous
ground when you do that. Don't do it. And this is exactly
what took place in the wilderness. There's no circumcision going
on. There's no Passover being kept. There's no unleavened bread
being eaten. Nothing. They're denied all the
means of God because of the unbelief of their fathers. In Exodus 12, 48, he clearly
says this. For no uncircumcised person shall
eat the Passover. You cannot rightly and justly keep the Passover without being
circumcised. You can't do it. So symbolically, what is this
circumcision? It is an inward work of the Holy
Ghost. Romans 2.29, listen to this.
He is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the
heart, whose praise is not of men, but of God. There is a work
that God performs in you in bringing you to Christ. If he brings you
to Christ, you'll see your sin. You'll condemn your past. You
can't find any pride in it because you're saved by grace in Christ.
Somebody said, well, we need a little love. No, you need a
little love is what you need. You don't need any love. Circumcision is that of the heart.
It's a work in the heart, and the praise of that work is all
owing to God, not to men. In Philippians chapter 3, verse
3, listen to this. This is after the fact. For we
are the circumcision which worship God in spirit. Now when you read
that, you're going to see that word spirit has a little s. He's
not talking directly about the Holy Spirit. He's talking about
spiritual understanding. We worship God with spiritual
understanding. You can't worship God any other
way. He that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. We worship God with spiritual
understanding, seeing Him as He's revealed in Christ. Our
hearts are lifted up. We hear the gospel. We see our
Lord high and lifted up, sitting on the throne, arranging all
things, having accomplished all things, having satisfied God's
justice. And we rest in Him. So we are the circumcision that
worship God in spirit, in spiritual understanding. And what else? We rejoice in Christ Jesus. Why? Because He's all. He's everything. And He's sufficient. He's not
only all, but He's sufficient. He's all you need. In Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we're complete in
Him. He's the head of all principality and power. You've got no hope
apart from Him. Our hope's not in a system. It's not in a experience our hopes in a person, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And then he tells us in our text
that having circumcised all Israel, he rolled away the reproach of
Egypt, all of its ungodly ways, all of its effects of bondage,
all that influence, even its ungodly fears and torments. So
much of what hinders us in God's service is just luggage that
we brought with us out of Egypt. That's all it is. Being circumcised, God now commands
His people to keep the Passover. Now we're talking about a preparation
to serve God. They're not in Canaan. to just
walk in and sit down. They're in there to serve the
purpose of God. And now God commands them to
keep the Passover. First time in 40 years. First
time since they left Egypt, they're going to keep the Passover. What
is the Passover? It's remembering their deliverance
by the Lamb. That's what it is. Basically, the gospel of Christ.
In the Passover, two things are prominent. First of all, the
lamb. The lamb was slain and its blood
applied by man to the doorpost. What's that? That's the preaching
of the gospel. The gospel is preached. The Holy Spirit takes
that blood and applies it to the conscience. It's the door
of the house. That's the way. Isn't it? Isn't that what he's doing? He's
putting that blood on the door. And when the Lord comes in total
condemnation and death, when I see the blood, He said, I'll
pass over you. Secondly, the lamb was to be
roasted, not boiled in water, not sodden
at all with water, it says. He's to be roasted. And we're
to eat the whole lamb, not, you know, My mom used to fix Thanksgiving
dinner and she'd roast a big old turkey up and they'd carve
it. Boy, it smelled so good you were starving to death by the
time it got on the table. And she'd pick that big platter
up and she'd go person to person and she'd say, white meat or
dark meat? And do you want stuffing with that? Well, there's no such
thing when it comes to the lamb at the Passover. You eat the
whole lamb. Ain't no dark meat, light meat.
That's what religion does. What do you prefer? No, you're
going to eat the whole lamb. All of it. Otherwise, you can't
keep the Passover. And its blood will be of no effect
to you if you don't eat the whole lamb. The lamb was slain, its blood
applied by a man to another's house. specifically to the door
post and the window. And the blood is why that house
was spared, when others were not. Not even Faye Rutherford
was spared. Nobody was spared. And secondly,
the lamb was to be roasted. And this picture is the sufferings
of Christ. Our reconciliation is blood-bought redemption. That's
what reconciles us to God. Not something we do. Not walking
down an aisle and not signing a pledge card. Our reconciliation
is blood-bought redemption. That's what it is. Reconciled
to the body of his flesh through death to present us unreprovable
before God. Think about that. Not even God
can find a fault in you being reconciled in Christ. And then
the lamb must be eaten. How do we do that? We do that every time we assemble
here in the gospel speech. We eat the lamb. And we don't add our homemade
stuffing to it either. Oh, how men love to stuff the
work of Christ with their own work. Piece of fishing. And then thirdly, we have unleavened
bread. Now whether that's the feast
of unleavened bread, I'm not really sure. You had unleavened
bread with the roasted lamb. But the following day was the
feast of unleavened bread. But before you could do that,
there had to be what they call a wave offering. And you took
the first fruits and you waved those before God. And I don't
read about that in this passage, which makes me think this was
all a part of that Passover, that unleavened bread. Leaven is what makes the bread
appetizing to men. Yvonne made me some cinnamon
rolls this past week. I think Walter got one of them.
But she put leaven in that bread and boy, it swelled all up and
she had those big old cinnamon rolls. They were so appealing
just to look at and smell. And that's what people do with the bread of Christ, they
try to make him accepted, unoffensive, and so on to the flesh. They
try to make everything they say is to appeal to the flesh. But there's no leaven in unleavened
bread. And our Lord tells us what that
leaven is. It's the doctrine of the Pharisees.
It's self-righteousness. Pride. That's leaven. Works religion, just old-fashioned
works religion. We used to sing a song in religion,
give me that old-time religion, I don't want it. Give me Christ. You can have
your old-time religion. And your tongues and whatever
else you do, dancing around the room. Why didn't they keep the Passover
in the wilderness? Because nothing was produced
in the wilderness to make bread from. They ate manna. It fell from
heaven. In John 6.33, our Lord was talking
about that manna to the Pharisees. They said, Moses gave us that
bread. He said, Moses didn't give you that bread. He said,
my father gave you that bread. Verse 33, for the bread of God
is he which came down from heaven and giveth life to the world. Manna is the hope of coming redemption,
or maybe even the earnest of it, but certainly a picture of
it. But in the verses of our text,
his kingdom is being established and the promise is already established. Joshua is in his kingdom. He's not pictured as coming to
establish a kingdom. He's standing in his kingdom. And this unleavened bread will
come from the old corner of the land. I was reading Matthew Henry
on this subject, and he said the wealth of the sinner is God's
provision for the saints. Those Canaanites worked those
fields hard, those farmers did. Hoed that corn and planted it
and watered it. Dunged that corn and got it all
raised up and filled their barns with it. But they wouldn't get
not even an ear of it. It all went to Israel. And so
God uses this world to maintain His people. He'll raise up somebody
and start a big multi-million dollar car factory just so one
of his elect can have a job. He uses this world. And it's,
that's what Paul said, you're over here arguing about who you
listened to when you were born of God. He said, don't you know
the world is yours? It belongs to you. By promise, it's yours. And God
will use it for your good and His glory. It's all by that provision, security
in Jesus Christ and Joshua. When they crossed Jordan on dry
ground, All those farmers, they ran to
Jericho, got behind those walls, thinking those walls were going
to protect them from Israel. They saw Israel cross that river
on dry ground, and they said, boy, we got no hope standing
before them. So they ran to Jericho, went
in and hid behind the walls, and leaving their barns full
of corn. And it was harvest time. You remember I read to you the
river was at flood stage. It's always at flood stage during
harvest time. So the barns were full. Probably
they were standing in a cornfield. Now the picture is this. The
land belongs to Christ and his church. And the fields are ripe
for harvest. In God's assembly there is no
want of bread. When you come here, there's no
want of bread. I'm giving you bread from the
moment we start singing our hymns till we close the service. You
don't want for bread standing in a cornfield. This little standing
in a cornfield. Go bake bread, here it is. All
you gotta do is reach out. Reach out and pluck it off the
stalk. We're in God's cornfield right
now. There's corn here. You remember back When Joseph
was in power down in Egypt, the saying went out because there
was a famine in the land. There's corn in Egypt. It is because of God's people. It was there by inheritance and
by sovereign right. And my point is this, the land
belongs to Christ and his church and the fields are ripe for the
harvest. In God's assembly, there is no want of bread. The rest
of the world may be in a famine, but there's no wanting of bread
when you're standing on cornfield. In the fulfillment of the Passover,
which is the Lord's table, we partake of unleavened bread.
Wine and unleavened bread. And there's nothing that fences
us from the table, from partaking of that wine and bread, except
not being able to discern the Lord's body, which is done in
circumcision, spiritual circumcision. That's where the revelation of
Christ comes into the heart. So we're circumcised by the Spirit
of God, made fit to partake of this, and we know what we're
partaking of. We're not just eating bread,
we're remembering the Lord. same as they did in the pastoral.
I wish I could read my writing. In the wilderness that bread
came down from heaven. How did it come down? Miraculously. And so it is that Christ was
preached by those old prophets, typified by God's providence
in men's lives. Read the book of Galatians. He
takes two women. He takes Sarah and her handmaid,
and their whole life tells a story, a spiritual story. And he often does that. And that's what we're looking
at here in Joshua. We're looking at the spiritual
story here of Israel coming out of the wilderness, going into
the land of promise. And I realize that we're talking
about ceremonial laws and New Testament ordinances, but what
we're really talking about is being prepared for the service
of the Lord. You can't serve the Lord without
being circumcised in the heart. You can't do it. You can't call
on Him in whom you have not believed, and you can't believe in Him
in whom you have not heard, and you can't hear without a preacher.
And he can't preach if God don't send him. But how are we prepared for this
service? Well, first of all, we assemble ourselves together
by His command. Joshua said, assemble yourselves.
Well, somebody said what? No, I can't do that today. I'm
going here, I'm going there. No, you're not. You're going
to assemble. If gospel says assemble yourselves, you're going to assemble
yourselves. What's the alternative? Direct
disobedience to the Lord of Glory. That's what it is. What you're doing is in direct
violation of His command. He says do this, and you say,
no, I'm going to do that. Huh? Preacher, you're being a little
hard. No, I'm not being hard. I'm just telling you what this
book says. And that's exactly what it says. How are we going
to escape if we neglect so great salvation? How are we going to
escape? Here's all the means. Well, I
don't want them. I'm just going to lay in bed. Go ahead. See
where it gets you. To me, staying home when God's
elect gather is like drinking a glass of poison to prove that
you can get away with it. And then secondly, when we come
here, we come being circumcised or to be circumcised, one or
the other, by the Spirit of the living God. A work of God putting
things in order. Establishing preeminence in things. And what do we do when we gather?
We eat the lamb, don't we? The roasted lamb. The whole lamb. The chosen lamb. The unspotted
lamb. The lamb that was set apart and
inspected for blemishes. And then lastly, we eat of the
old corn. There's corn in his church. His
church is the pillar and ground of the truth. You know, if I'm
here and want for gospel knowledge, I dare say anybody in this congregation
could give you spiritual knowledge of Christ. There's corn in this
land. This is the husbandman's field. He plants the corn. He may use
a cane a night to throw the seed, but it's his corn. you give it
to whom you will. May the Lord circumcise every
heart here today and enable us to eat of the chosen
lamb and prepare us to serve our God. Now here's the thing.
If He prepares us to service, what does that mean? That means
your demeanor of life, your temperament has to do with all things. Everything
that you do, your dealings with men, everything. We serve Him
in ways that we don't even think about every day. You tell somebody
something, be sure you're telling them the truth. You make a deal,
keep it. And submit yourself to the
means and authority that God has put in place. Obey them that
have the rule over you. Why? I'm bigger than he is. You
ain't bigger than God. I can tell you that. Somebody
said one time, something I said, they said, well, I could have
got mad. And I said, well, I'm more afraid of God than I am
of you. So do your worst. Oh, no. Everything we do is in
service to him. And we need to think about it
and be reminded of it constantly. Or don't take the gracious means
that God has provided. Don't ignore it. Don't lay it
aside. Don't do it. You saying we can't take a vacation?
No, I ain't saying that. You need to take a vacation,
go ahead and take it. But don't set things all year
long in precedence to this. Don't do it. Don't do it. You're
going to pay for it. I'm telling you. All right. May the Lord bless
you.