Our lesson this morning will
be taken from Joshua chapter 2 and verses 16 through 22. Subject in these verses is the
hiding place. The hiding place. Let's read
these verses together. Joshua chapter 2, verse 16. And she, that is Rahab, said
unto them, Get you to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you, and
hide yourselves there three days until the pursuers be returned,
and afterward may you go your way. And the men said unto her,
We will be blameless of this thine oath which thou hast made
us swear. Behold, when we come into the
land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window
which thou didst let us down by, and thou shalt bring thy
father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father's
household home unto thee. And it shall be that whosoever
shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, that
is, when it's under siege, when it's under attack. If anybody
from your house go out into the street, his blood shall be upon
his head, and we will be guiltless. And whosoever shall be with thee
in the house, his blood shall be on our head, if any hand be
upon him. And that if thou utter this our
business, then we will be quit of thine oath, which thou hast
made us to swear.' And she said, According unto your words, so
be it. And she sent them away, and they
departed, and she bound the scarlet line in the window. And they
went and came unto the mountain, and abode there three days, until
the pursuers were returned. And the pursuers sought them
throughout the way, and found them not. Our lesson this morning,
as I said, is the hiding place. She said, you go to the mountain
and hide. Now, I want to remind myself
and you that these things are concerning what is typical what's going to be typical. These
things are a type of what's going to come to pass. And this is
a picture of the Kingdom of God being established in this world
and the gathering of His elect together to do what God called
them to do. God called Israel. Israel wasn't
just a people sitting around and said, One day I think it'd
be a good idea if we'd seek the Lord. No, the Lord sought them,
called them out of darkness, established them, and they are
typical of God's church. Rahab may well stand as a symbol
of his church, which is represented often as his bride. And you say,
yeah, but she was a harlot. Well, in the book of Hosea, he
tells his prophet to go take unto him a wife of whoredoms, and that she will be an accurate
description of the church. And children of whoredoms, for
the land hath committed great whoredom departing from the Lord. And Rahab was a harlot, but she
was also a picture of God's elect. And these messengers, or spies
if you will, are brought here and put in harm's way to see
things as they really are. Isn't that why you send a spy
into a land? You want to see things as they
really are. And then report back to Joshua,
that is Jesus. and tell him what things you've
seen and heard." Now, listen to me. They didn't tell Joshua anything
that Joshua hadn't already seen. Joshua was among the first spies
who went into the land. He and Caleb. He didn't send
them over there for information for him because he'd already
seen it. He'd already seen the walled
cities. He'd already seen the giants. He'd already seen everything
that there was to see. But he sent these men over there
for their benefit. And when they come back, they
were going to be an encouragement to Israel and not a discouragement
the way the bulk of those other spies were. It may be that these messengers
are typical of the apostles. Our Lord called them out of darkness,
walked them through this world, made them to see things as they
really are. And they talked to him about
it. He gave them the gifts, sent them out to preach, and they
come home and he told them when he went out that devils were
going to be subject to them. They come back and say, guess
what? The devils are subject to them. You think he didn't
already know that? Sure he did. They were sent by
Christ himself to bear witness of God's Israel concerning his
kingdom and power and glory. God's people are not kept in
the dark. We need to think about that.
Christ said in John 15, you're my friends if you do whatsoever
I command you. You're my friends. Now you think
about what he said. This is God coming into the flesh.
And he's telling these men that he called and was teaching and
knew from all eternity. He looks at them and he said,
you're my friends. You're my friends. Henceforth
I call you not servants, where the servant knoweth not what
his Lord doeth, but I have called you friends for all things that
I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. I told you
things that you didn't know. And I did it because of my friends.
My friends. Well, what does he show us? He
sent these spies into the land. What's he going to show us? Well,
he shows them first that it's occupied. The land's not clear. The land's occupied. It's yours by covenant provision,
and it's yours by promise. But it's occupied, it's fortified,
and those who live in the land hate God. What does He show us
when He calls us? The same thing. And He lets you
learn it by experience, don't He? I thought when the Lord first
revealed Christ to me, I thought everybody in the world would
want to hear this. It's the best news I'd ever heard.
Been going to church all my life, never heard anything like it.
It overwhelmed me. I wanted to tell everybody. And
I went home, and the first one I told was my dad. You couldn't
believe how mad he was. I just couldn't believe he was
angry. What are you angry at? Huh? Who told you these things? Huh? Oh, my. He's going to let you
learn by experience, isn't he? It's yours by covenant provision.
It's yours by the promise of God. But it's occupied, it's
fortified, and those who live in the land hate God. They're
ungodly. They're immoral. They're idle
worshippers. They're ignorant. They're self-willed,
stiff-necked, heathens. And the truth of the type, here's
what I want you to hear. The truth of the type is that
those that are looking at the land are the same as those they're
looking at. That's why he lets you learn
it by experience. What did they see? By faith they
saw themselves. They saw themselves. It's a revelation
of ourselves. Paul said, are we better than
that? They had great advantage. Sure they did. That's why these
people feared. But are they better after everything's
said and done? Are they any better now? No.
No, because I before proved both Jew and Gentile are all under
sin. And men and women are born in
sin. The scripture said we come forth
from the womb speaking lies. We go astray as soon as we be
born. Man at his best state, altogether
vanity. And when the Spirit of the living
God allows us to pass over Jordan and spy the land, what we find
are sinners. We find sinners. The Spirit allows
us to see ourselves. Where do we see ourselves? Everywhere.
Not just in ourselves, but in others. I see myself. Now let me tell you something. You don't
have to be elect to see this. That whole ten of those twelve
spies that went into the land, ten of them didn't see it. All
they saw was What'd they say? They'd seen giants, they'd seen
walled cities. What they saw was an absolute
impossibility. You don't have to be elect to
see these things, but you do for it to have the proper effect
on you. First time God sent spies into
the land, they came back with a discouraging testimony. All
of them except Joshua and Caleb. And speaking of these very men,
it says in Hebrews 4.1, let us therefore fear lest a promise
being left us of entering into his rest, that any of you should seem to
come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached
as well as unto them. But the word preached did not
profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard
it. For we which have believed do enter in to rest. When God the Holy Spirit first
begins to awaken us to our sin, it's as though we're looking
at a stranger, isn't it? We're looking at a stranger.
Never looked at myself that way before. I thought I was a sinner. Why? Because I stole. Because I lied. because of these
many transgressions of the law, but I didn't see sin yet as a
nature. I didn't see the potential of
sin. That sin is in me. I'm on the
sin. I've got a cursed nature and
the potential to do anything that any other man's ever done
is in here. And if I haven't done it, there's
only one reason for it, the restraining hand of God. You mean the potential to do
any kind of sins in me was in David? Boy, you didn't ask. When you saw that man out there
with a sling standing up and all this was cowering down on
the bank and this man standing out there, that giant with that
sling, you would never have imagined that this same man could have
sat up on a rooftop and plotted the murder of his best friend
so he could have his wife. Huh? The potential to do any sin is
in you. It's in you. What the elect see when they
spy out the land is that those who live there dug in. Sin dug
in, ain't it? Oh, you can't uproot it. You
can't get rid of it. What the elect see, that those
without the Spirit can never see, is that no man is any match
for God. He's not any match for God. Naturally speaking, they had
the upper hand, didn't they, over Israel? They had the upper
hand, but they didn't have the upper hand over God. Listen to what Paul said. He's
talking about saved men now, men who've seen the truth, men
who know the truth. We do not war after the flesh. They were no match. I'm telling
you, you imagine Goliath all by himself withstood all of Israel. All of Israel. They wouldn't
come down into that plain. Twenty-five or thirty of them
at the most could have come down there and overcome that giant,
couldn't they? Yeah, but who's going to be among the twenty-five
or thirty? You see what I'm saying? They're no match for God. No
match for God. And Paul said, we don't war after
the flesh, and that's why. You don't have the ability. You
don't have the strength. You don't have the wisdom. We
don't war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, but they're mighty through God. Did God need for
them to have a chariot or a spear or a sword? No. He destroyed
an entire army, and not anybody from Israel went out. They were
dug in around the city. And they were going to overcome
the city, and there wasn't anything anybody in the city could do
about it. But God said, you're not going to fight this battle,
I am. Next day, they sent some men out to see what was going
on. And they had to run up on the mountain to see them. Boy,
they done turned tail and run. I forget how many hundred thousand
he killed. God doesn't need us to battle anything. But our weapons
are mighty through God. To do what? To the pulling down
of strongholds. Jericho was a stronghold, wasn't
it? We had religious strongholds. That's what Jericho's a picture
of. When Israel went into this, Jericho was so fortified. The
walls were massive. They could run chariots around
the top of that wall side to side. It was a huge city, huge
walls, fortified. They had weapons that we didn't
know anything about that Israel didn't. You know how God tore
that city down? He blew a trumpet. You over here plottin' and plannin',
you're a general. Trumpet ain't gonna be in you.
Huh? You gonna start countin' chariots and spears and men and
horsemen and all that. Huh? No. God said you ain't gonna
do any of that. You gonna blow on the trumpet.
The trumpet's the gospel. Huh? They gonna sound the gospel
and the walls gonna come down in there. You see how these types,
they put a picture in your mind of what he's saying. And our weapons are mighty through
God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and
every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge
of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ. That's what's going on. We ain't
tearing anything down physically. Through the person of God's Son,
Israel will cross the river, take possession of the land,
and those who occupy it will be defeated. Now, they're going to trouble
Israel the rest of their life, but they're not going to reign.
What else do God's people see in the land? They see pursuers.
Pursuers, who are they? They're representatives of the
law. The king of the land said, You, you, you, you, he picked
him out of a company of men and he said, you go out there and
arrest that man. And if he please or if he stands
up against you and want me, you kill him. You kill him, you destroy
him. These are representatives of
the law. Now let me tell you something about the law. What
thing soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under
the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world
become guilty before God. The law takes away your excuses. The law hunts you down. You can't avoid the law. You're
going to face the law. They're not going to come back
until they're satisfied. Cursed is every man who continueth
not in all things written in the book of the law to do. It
doesn't demand the best you can do. It demands what God said
is his best. That's what it demands. Perfection. Ultimate perfection. And by the
deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his
sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. I'm sure they heard some lies
like the law is your friend, the law is there to encourage
you, the law is there so you can make yourself righteous,
the law is coming so the law will examine
your works and you'll be justified. Those are lies. The problem with
all these things is they're not true. The law is not made for
a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for
the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy, profane, for
murderers, murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, manslayers,
and so on. The law is coming for those who
are not fellow citizens with the saints. They're not citizens of their
land, and the law's coming after them. Sinners who know they're
sinners, they have no excuse. And there's only one thing for
them to do, and that's to hide. Hide. Where? There's only one
place to hide from the pursuers, get thee up to the mountain.
What mountain? Mount Calvary. Mount Zion. Get thee up to the mountain.
What mountain? That mountain that Abraham prophesied
about. In the mount of the Lord it shall
be seen. That mount where substitution
is demonstrated and declared. Thou shalt call his name Jehovah
Jireh. In the mount of the Lord it shall
be seen. It's by way of substitution,
and God declares His righteousness there for the remission of sins. He declares Himself to be just
and justifier of those that believe. Isaiah said the Lord is well
pleased for His righteousness sake. He will magnify the law
and make it honorable. There's only one place to hide
from the law, and that's in God. Our life is hid with Christ in
God. And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall we appear also with him. We have to hide. We're going to hide. We're going
to hide in Christ. How's that going to do us any
good? In the manner of the Lord, it shall be seen. That's how
it's going to do you good. He satisfied the law. That's the mountain. And it's
the one place the law will never look. The pursuers examined every
inch of the way, but they never looked in the mountain. They
never looked in the mountain. Now let me warn you and warn
myself in the process, you can't hide in the way. You must hide in Him who is the
way. There are untold thousands Right
now, in our day, trying to hide from the law in the way. What's
that mean? That means they're Calvinist.
I'm getting where I don't even like the term. We're going to hide. We're going
to hide. We're going to hide in the gospel. You can't hide
from the law in the gospel. No, you can't. You have to hide
from the law of Christ. The gospel tells you who he is,
why he came, what he did, and where he's at. And then we hope
in him. We hide in him. It says that the pursuers sought
them, now watch this, throughout all the way. But they didn't
find them. They didn't find them. Many are the men and women who
try to hide from the law and the way, and try to hide in the
doctrines of grace, and hide in professions of faith, hide
in Calvinism, and legalism, and ceremonialism. They try to hide
in their own faithfulness. They hide in church membership.
And they hide in the testimonies of others. Everybody else is
satisfied that you're a son of God. You better not hide in that. Better not hide in that. Hide
in the mountain. And God is the mountain. The pursuer sought them throughout
all the way. Now listen to this. To go back
from where they are to Joshua, You must go by the way. You have
to go by the way. There's no other way. You're not going to be saved
and be ignorant of the way, but the way in and of itself is no
hiding place from the law. I must go to the mountain and
stay there three days. Three days. What's that got to
do with anything? Huh? Because in those three days,
He clears the way. Does He not? He clears the way. You see, He chose us in Christ.
Christ is a representative man. He's a substitute. And in those
three days, what happened? He said, tear down this temple
in three days, I'll build it back. I'm going to do what God sent
me to do, and I'm going to do it in three days. God chose us
and put us in an eternal covenant union with His Son. He considers
us one with His Son. And His Son faced the pursuers. He faced the law, and the law
judged Him because He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.
And the law put Him to death. He died the just for the unjust
that He might bring us to God. He laid us in a tomb. What's
that mean? That's evidence that He died.
They laid Him in a tomb for three days. On the third day, He arose. And we arose with Him. Isn't
that what baptism confesses? The death, burial, and resurrection
of Christ. We hide there three days. Why? Because the pursuers
after three days will be satisfied. That's why. That's what all this
searching for and hunting for. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God who justifies. God justifies. God's satisfied with the work
of Christ. And there's nothing in the way.
When they went back to go to Joshua, they didn't have to hide.
They walked before God and men. They just walked down that way
like nothing ever took place. And they went back to Joshua.
By way of union with him, I'm judged, crucified, buried, and
raised from the dead. The Bible says I'm actually seated
with him. If I'm a believer, I'm seated
with him in glory. And then in Romans 6, verse 4,
it said, Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into his
death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory
of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
That's what we're confessing when we're baptized. And at the
end of these three days, the law returns to the king. It does
not. The law returns to the king,
and the king ain't mad at him. Now the law is exalted and honored.
It did all it could do. It did all it could do. Now what happens? What happens when they rejoin
Israel? What happens when they get back
to where Israel's encamped? It says they went to Joshua and
told him everything that befell him. Isn't that what you do?
When you've experienced this thing of salvation in your soul,
don't you go to God and tell Him what things have happened. We tell Him, don't we? Have you and I ever been sent
into Canaan? Have we ever been instructed
by the saved harlot? That's what's going on here this
morning. You're being instructed by a saved harlot. We ever entered into the covenant
that she insisted on? She insisted on it. That's what
they said. You made us swear this. Have we ever been told to hide
in the mountains until the satisfied law returns to the king? There were some who went over.
He even brought back some fruit, but died in the wilderness in
unbelief. But these two come back full
of encouragement, told of the attitude of the enemies, and
they said even all the inhabitants of the country do faint because
of us. God put the fear of God in them.
And they said it very quick, they knew what was coming. They
knew what was coming. Does God elect the people to
be feared? They are when God's with them.
And He's always with His own. Now I know my ignorance and my inability,
but my prayer is that He'll use this poor sinner the way He used
that poor harlot. And give these men the message
that they need. Give them the encouragement that
they need. And get them to... What's the word I want to use?
Confirm the covenant that she set before. Our life for yours. That's what they said. Our life
for yours. All right, thank you.